


Opus No. 4

by BebeUnit



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I am a humble salt miner, Post-Canon, Pygmalion and Galatea, so prepare for angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-22 17:06:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7447132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BebeUnit/pseuds/BebeUnit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her old life lies in the ashes of a broken mind, so again and again he sculpts her anew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was written as a submission for the Reylo Fanfiction Anthology (see: reylofanfictionanthology.tumblr.com) and may undergo some editing/revisions after initial posting. Its inclusion in the anthology is pending a content check by moderators, but I anticipate no problems.
> 
> The premise of the Anthology project was to create works based off of fairy tales and myths. When I was writing Peace is a Lie, a reader once commented that Kylo was very like Pygmalion, trying to construct the perfect apprentice. I wasn't familiar with that archetype so I started reading about it, and this fic is the result. This is nothing like the George Bernard Shaw play, which was the basis for the musical My Fair Lady. Instead, it is more thematically consistent with the William S. Gilbert play... but I will give nothing else away. 
> 
> I had a bunch of lovely betas for this work, from the outline stage to the final draft you see here. I'd like to thank thermaldetonhater, highsmith, lolitatori, and londonjb of tumblr for their tireless editing.
> 
> I'd also like to thank the organizers and moderators from the Reylo Fanfiction Anthology: SouthSideStory, who came up with this mad idea, as well as tumblr's MnemeHoshiko, ReyloTrashCompactor, Lairen-Shadow, PoliticalMamaDuck, thewayofthetrashcompactor, and shelikespretties.
> 
> Special shout out to the lovely ladies of the Anthology Skype Chat for all the encouragement and gratuitous word warring--community makes a big difference!
> 
> Finally, I'd like to thank my collaborating artist, you-can-revolt, who is making some fantastic cover art for this work and who has put up with all my stupid ideas and constant mind-changing. Her work is beautiful. Please look up her blog and support her.
> 
> This fic is COMPLETE. It will posted in 8 regular short installments on Sundays and Wednesdays. The total length of the work is ~21k. 
> 
> The work includes some very vague references to suicide attempts, so TW for that.
> 
> And off we go!

Prologue

_She's different this time. The Supreme Leader went back farther, stripped out more details. It's as close to a fresh block of marble as one can get without permanently damaging her mind. She's naive, almost childish, and it's oddly compelling--terrifying, as well. She knows nothing of the First Order or the Force, and thinks she's just a scavenger. She's forgotten me and all of our time together._

_He says we can't keep doing this over and over. It's been years of wasted time, but I don't care. I did what he wanted: Luke Skywalker is dead, and now I get Rey and all the time I need. That was the bargain. The rest of the galaxy can go to hell._

_It wasn't easy to convince her to come this time. The promise of mastering the Force wasn't particularly enticing; she was sure it was a myth until I pulled a TIE fighter out of the sand for her, and even then she was too anxious to leave Jakku. She'd bet her life and her freedom on the slim chance of her family coming back for her, work herself into an unmarked grave waiting for them. I had to promise to find her family for her, but I have no intention of taking her to them. If all goes well, she won't care about them anymore. She'll have me._

_We won't be going to the First Order for a long time. Everything there is too familiar; the Stormtroopers, the starships, even the architecture. This time I'm taking her somewhere green, somewhere with water and a blue sky. The Force will be stronger. We'll be alone with no masks, no robes, no lightsabers, nothing to remind her. I'll structure the training differently and give her a version of history that's easier to digest. She hasn't done well with philosophy or dogma; Skywalker's words are ingrained too deeply to fully erase, but we don't need to discuss the duality of the Force for her to learn to use it. If I just lead her into the practical skills, focus on efficiency and control instead of dark and light, she'll come into her power on her own. Once I've won her over, I can start reintroducing her to parts of the past._

_I don't care how long it takes. She is my perfect match, my perfect counterpoint in the Force, and we will be together._

_Or I will tear this galaxy apart._


	2. Act I, part 1

Act I

         Water, as far as her wide eyes can see. Rey flits between viewports to find that it stretches from one horizon to the other in gentle blue ripples like windswept sand, constantly in motion. She can scarcely believe it, can't imagine that so much water could possibly exist in one place. How deep is it, she wonders. How many canteens worth? How many day's rations for how many scavengers, all in one unfathomably large puddle? How far does it go on?

         Soon she has her answer, as great gray cliffs appear in the distance like a star destroyer buried beneath blue dunes. She plops, still wide-eyed, into the copilot's seat as the ship begins to brake. It's an old Corona-class transport, nondescript but in good repair, and before long they are cruising at landing speed over something so bizarre that Rey can only stare at it, mouth agape.

         It's a _forest._ Verdant and alive, reaching far into the distance where it finally thins out on the slopes of a craggy range of mountains. Rey leans forward in her seat and strains her eyes to pick out individual trees in the carpet of green below them. Kylo Ren, the man who lured her away from Jakku with a dozen promises, is glancing at her from the corner of his eye with a smirk on his scarred face, but Rey is too awed to feel indignant. How silly her reluctance to leave Jakku seems now in the face of this extraordinary landscape. What other wonders the galaxy must hold, Rey thinks, if this lush planet of plants and water is so ordinary to the man beside her that he can smirk at her amazement.

         The cliffs at the ocean's edge give way to a sandy shoreline bordered by the immense forest, and the man who will be her teacher eases the Corona-class down onto grassy dunes, far past the wrack line. Rey rushes to gather her only belongings, a staff and a bag of threadbare clothes. She bounces her weight from one leg to the other waiting for the hatch to slide down and finally races out onto the sand. There's a sound behind her--a chuckle?--but Rey disregards it. She doesn't know whether to run to the sea or the trees first.

         The sea wins. Water is the great equalizer, after all: the privileged require it as much as the needy, and in the heat of the desert it's a universally shared commodity, not to be denied even to an enemy. Rey's never seen more than a liter of potable water in a single container before now, and here is enough to slake the thirst of a thousand luggabeasts and their masters for lifetimes upon lifetimes.

         Gentle waves lap at her shoes and Rey kicks at them, sending spray into the air. Her fingers appear to wobble and stretch as she plunges them beneath the crystal-clear surface. Laughing, Rey cups her hands and brings them to her lips.

         With a cough, she immediately spits her mouthful back out into the sea.

         She has no doubt now her companion is laughing at her. Standing on the dune with a bag slung over his shoulder, he guffaws as she sputters and makes faces at the taste. She trudges back up the dune and sticks out her tongue, gaping to get the flavor from her mouth, but still grinning.

         “It’s so salty!”

         “Oceans usually are,” He replies, hiking his bag up on his shoulder. “We have a desalination pump set up at the compound. There’ll be as much fresh water as you can drink.” There’s a glint in his eye, a hint of pride. The contrarian inside her wants to squash that ego, to say something critical or mistrustful to maintain the independence she’s spent a decade cultivating. But Rey’s never seen anything like this planet, and after fifteen years in her hovel on Jakku she imagines it won’t take much, from Kylo Ren’s standpoint, to amaze her. She doesn’t have anything to gain by acting the critic now. Their negotiations ended when he swore to find her family.

         He leads her into the forest, and Rey’s neck is quickly sore from craning upwards. The trees are taller than twenty men stacked, she imagines, or maybe five X-Wing fighters end-to-end. Immediately she wonders if she can climb them or, rather, when she can—surely a tree is little different than the skeleton of a star destroyer.

         Staring at the green canopy filtering the midday sunlight, Rey is reminded of imagined landscapes from holobooks or something she’s seen in a dream, perhaps. Eyes sparkling, she sighs. “I didn’t know there was this much green—” _in the whole galaxy._

         Rey frowns suddenly and furrows her brows. Of course she knew it… she’s seen a forest. She’s even had that very thought before, that very same thought about not knowing there was this much green in the whole galaxy. She’s said those same words out loud; she’s certain of it. But as she strains to remember, a pounding pressure builds in her head.

         Jakku has been all she’s remembered since she was a small child. Her first memory is sand and sun and a ship rising into a hazy sky. Still, there is a nagging sense of familiarity; the frustrating tickle of a memory just beyond reach, like when a word escapes her. But Rey shakes off these irritating thoughts, gazing again at the canopy in wonder. If she’s ever seen a forest, she can’t remember it and it doesn’t matter now.

         After a short hike they reach their destination, a semi-temporary looking geometric structure shaped like a pair of faceted domes, connected on one side. As they approach Rey sees they’re made of thick white sheets of duraplast pulled over steel framing, like a large and elaborate tent.

         “Is this where you live?” She asks, running her fingers over the dew-drenched panels and watching as Kylo Ren begins to unfasten and roll up part of the covering, revealing a door set in a transparent section.

         “I live on a star destroyer,” he explains absently. “Several, actually.”

         "Why are we here then, instead of on one of your ships?”

         He pauses in his work, just for a moment, before replying. “Star destroyers are not good places to learn about the Force. This environment will be better suited for you.”

         He pulls open the door, and inside the dome it’s far more comfortable than Rey imagined. A pair of low armchairs and a rustic table sit beside a wood-burning stove, and a small galley area has cabinets packed to the brim with rations and meal bars. There’s a cookstove and an electric kettle. Rey tries the knobs on the sink to find that her new teacher has been true to his word: clear water pours from the tap, not the least bit salty or metallic. It’s probably the cleanest she’s ever tasted.

         Kylo Ren leads her into the adjoining dome, his plodding gait echoing on the brushed steel floor of the compound. He has to duck to clear the arched entryway into the sleeping space, which contains two generously sized futons already made up on the floor. The roof panels are clear in this room and the sunlight streaming in is soothing, if somewhat warm.

         “If the weather is particularly poor we can train in here, but otherwise we’ll be working outside. There’s a ‘fresher behind that screen,” he gestures to a wall of white duraplast sectioning off a slice of the dome. “And here’s a footlocker for your things. I had some… more suitable training attire brought in for you, but please dress as you’re comfortable.”

         The lack of private space makes her mildly uneasy, but Rey supposes it’s only because she’s so used to being alone. A moment of awkward silence passes, and finally she turns to see Kylo Ren watching her with a calculating expression that raises the hair on the back of her neck. He clears his throat, and Rey finds the sound is strangely familiar. “I’ll see you outside in an hour. I have some supplies to unload from the ship.”

         Then he ducks out of sleeping space, leaving Rey to gawk.

\- - - - -

         The refresher is a marvel, full of so many gleaming knobs and bottles of earthy-smelling oil soaps that Rey can scarcely pull herself away to get dressed. When she finally emerges, her steps are just a bit lighter. She never been so clean, she thinks—her hair has never been so soft. The clothes Kylo Ren mentioned are sensible, quality garments in varying tones of gray and beige that fit like they were made for her. She’s chosen a pair of loose-fitting linen pants and a snug, sand colored tank, well suited for the warm afternoon.

         The living space is now strewn with baggage, and as she steps out into the forest Rey sees her new teacher hefting a crate of cylindrical canisters into a lean-to crammed with an assortment of supplies. He’s shed the military-style jacket he was wearing earlier, leaving just a short-sleeved white shirt. Rey can see, now, that the scar bisecting his face extends halfway down his arm, and she has the urge to ask him about it when they’re more comfortable.

         “Feeling refreshed?” He inquires, kicking the door of the shed closed with a soft grunt. “We can get started anytime you’re ready.”

         Rey nods, her eyes still drawn irresistibly upwards into the trees. “So what do I call you? Master Ren?”

         “As much as I would enjoy that, I think _Kylo_ will do for now.”

         His tone is playful, almost solicitous. Her eyes snap to him and she catches a hint of a smug smile, one eyebrow raised slightly. Rey feels blood rushing into her cheeks, and she quickly huffs a breath and smiles woodenly to disguise it.

         “Okay then, Kylo.” The name rolls pleasantly from her lips. It feels habitual, even intimate. Rey is a bit wary of the familiar term but _Master Ren_ is even more uncomfortable now, so she has little choice. A welcome breeze rustles the leaves above them and Rey turns her face into it, inhaling the scents of growth and decay that permeate the woods. With a slight shake of her head, she casts her concerns to the wind. “I’m ready. Unless you have more to do.”

         Kylo nods and ducks into the shelter, returning a moment later with two polished wooden poles about as tall as Rey’s hip. He tosses her one, and Rey snatches it out of the air.

         The playfulness is gone from his voice, replaced by a calm, professorial tone. “We could get into more philosophical practice first, but since we’ve been in hyperspace awhile I thought we’d start with something physical.” He plants his feet shoulder-width apart and holds his mock-weapon with two hands, and Rey mimics him without thinking. “Shii-Cho is a very basic lightsaber form, and all other forms rely on it to some degree. It’s good swordsmanship, without tricks or flourishes. It’s the tool you pull out when all others fail.”

         Rey watches Kylo move slowly through the group of movements, swings and prods and blocks, his boots sliding across the leaf-strewn ground in precise steps. Shii-Cho alternates smoothly between quick bursts of movement and slow, controlled transitions between stances. It looks effortless, but Rey knows in her bones that every aspect of every stance is intentional—the placement of elbows, the lines his arms make with the practice sword, the angle of his knees. It’s hypnotic to watch, and before long Rey is moving with him.

         From her position behind him, she tries to match the lines and angles of his body as best she can. She sweeps through the different poses, stretching and working muscles that seem more and more at ease. The movements flow seamlessly into one another and seem to come from somewhere deep within her, as if she’d always known them and needed only to be reminded of where to place her limbs. By the third pass through the series, Rey feels as if she’s done it a thousand times.

         Kylo turns to watch for a moment, and his expression turns dark. Rey falters, sure that she’s made a mistake.

         “No, continue,” he urges, switching quickly to a smile that never quite reaches his eyes. “You’re doing very well.”

         Rey resumes the form, concentrates on holding her limbs steady and straight, on moving her feet with a precise grace. Her muscles move faster than her mind, and Rey allows it. “It’s so meditative. Almost like a dance.”

         Kylo is nodding slowly. “That’s the idea of practicing them this way. The movements become muscle memory, so in a fight you can respond without thinking.”

         Rey thinks her muscles must be uncommonly fast learners.

\- - - - -

         Their evening meal is far better than Rey expects. It turns out field rations from the First Order are in no way comparable to the rations Rey has had on Jakku. Rather than dehydrated protein and powdered vegetable matter, these rations are real preserved meat, vegetables, and grains. Rey watches, her mouth watering, as Kylo opens two silver foil packages, tips their gooey contents into a pot, and stirs. Rey can see flecks of red and green, cubes of brown meat, chunks of white root vegetable…

         “Do you get to eat this all the time?” She asks excitedly, rocking back and forth on her heels.

         Kylo scoffs, wrinkling his nose. “Get to? Usually the fare is much better.”

         Rey’s eyes widen at the prospect, and Kylo glances sideways at her, smiling indulgently. “When we rejoin the fleet, I’ll show you real food. Meats you’ve never even heard of. Yeasty bread, yogurt, eggs... fruit so fresh you can smell its sweetness from the next room.”

         The description is so seductive that Rey has to consciously clamp her mouth closed to keep from drooling. As far as she can recall, she’s never eaten an actual fruit. “When will that be?”

         There’s a long silence, punctuated by the tinny scraping of the spoon against the steaming pot and the pop and burble of the stew beginning to boil. “When you’re almost fully trained, and when I’m certain that the Supreme Leader will find you trustworthy. Pull out some bowls?”

         Rey opens and closes a few cabinets before she finds them and sets them by the stove, and then hunts through the unfamiliar drawers for spoons. “What’s he like?”

         Kylo tilts his head back and forth a few times, hedging as he portions out the meal. The scent is divine—spicy and savory, unfamiliar but comforting all the same. Kylo hands her a bowl and makes for the pair of armchairs by the wall of clear panels, their only seating. “He is very old and very wise. For that reason, he is… careful. Secretive. Paranoid, perhaps. No one knows very much about him, but he’s been leading the First Order for more than twenty years, and we’ve been very successful in that time.”

         The stew is far too hot to enjoy properly but Rey devours it anyway. She has not the faintest idea what it’s made of, and she thinks it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. “How long have you known the Supreme Leader?” She manages to ask between mouthfuls.

         Kylo raises a single eyebrow and responds quietly. “He’s mentored me for as long as I can remember.”

         The comment makes Rey slow down for a moment, confused by some instinctive feeling of wrongness. For as long as he can remember means since he was a child, and that means… Rey isn’t sure, though for some reason it seems insidious. But she knows nothing about this man who calls himself Kylo Ren. She doubts this is his true name, even with no basis for suspicion. Questions bounce around her mind, all of them too personal. Instead she asks, “So what has the First Order been successful in? What are you trying to do?”

         His face relaxes and he takes another bite, eating far more slowly than Rey. “The First Order is trying to restore some order to the galaxy. Since the fall of the Empire, chaos has been permitted to rule. The New Republic was too busy squabbling over whose job it was to fix all the infrastructure that was destroyed in the rebellion to actually govern. Corruption is rampant. Slavery is making a comeback, as close to the core as Jakku apparently.” He curls his lip at this, eyes flashing. “Little warlords have cropped up everywhere. The First Order is amassing a large military to put a stop to it.”

         Rey nods as he speaks, frowning as she recalls Unkar Plutt’s greedy little operation at Niima Outpost. The Republic sure hasn’t done much to help her, as far as Rey can tell. “But the New Republic wasn’t very happy with you?”

         “Not in the least,” Kylo gloats. “We made them look very ineffective, so instead of thanking us for cleaning up their mess they levied sanctions and attacked us. We’re a legitimate confederation of planets who want peace and order and the New Republic has tried to destroy us using a privately funded proxy military. Very _illegally_.”

         He’s gesturing with his spoon, and he leans back in his chair and props his boots irreverently on the low table between them. The casual posture is strangely familiar, and the tickle in the back of her mind returns. She knows someone who sits like that, but she can’t remember where she’s seen them. Rey lets the frustrating thought go.

         “Well, the First Order did blow up the Senate and the Republic Fleet,” she replies, if only to play devil’s advocate. As a scavenger, Rey hasn’t had much opportunity to study politics. Still, the story sounds a little too simple to be complete.

         A clatter rings out as Kylo’s spoon suddenly drops into his bowl. He stares at her for a moment, head tilted at a deliberate angle that again seems oddly familiar. “Where did you hear about that?”

         Rey purses her lips and thinks, trying unsuccessfully to recall where she learned about the destruction of the Hosnian system. She finds that she knows a bit about it—five planets destroyed without warning by some sort of super weapon—but the details are fuzzy, and Rey finds that concentrating too hard on recalling them makes her head pound. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s the sort of thing everyone knows about, isn’t it? It was pretty big news.”

         Kylo stands and holds out a hand to collect her empty bowl, snapping back into his easy manner as if nothing were ever amiss. “Yes, it was. We were retaliating, for the first time really, against twenty years of unfair and illegal sanctions that were making it impossible for us to function. We couldn’t buy ships. We couldn’t buy supplies. We have a large military to feed and territory to defend from other regimes. We’d tried diplomacy, but the Senate wouldn’t hear us. So we did what we had to do.”

         “I guess.” Rey follows him to the kitchen, grabbing a towel from a drawer. She dries the bowls and the pan as Kylo washes them, and sets them back into the crammed cabinets. “That’s a lot of people to kill all at once though.”

         “We’re considering the welfare of an entire galaxy. Hard choices are going to come with the territory, I think.” He runs long, calloused fingers through his mane of black hair and looks towards the clear wall panel, into the darkening forest. Frowning, he continues quietly. “Though I’ll admit… I’m glad the choice wasn’t mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr's Panda-Cappuccino has created some fabulous art this chapter: [Click here for GORGEOUS ART!](http://hyperscanvindicator.tumblr.com/post/147900649735/thedarkside-and-thelight-here-is-a-commission)
> 
> Thanks so much to Panda and Miss Harper for this amazing gift!


	3. Act I, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's joined me so far! I hope you like where things are going...

         The futon is comfortable enough and a fan keeps the hot air moving so that the sleeping space isn’t particularly warm, but Rey still finds herself unable to sleep. It’s typical for her—long nights in the desert spent looking skyward, trying to find the lights of a ship that’s probably never coming back for her. She can see the stars through the clear paneled roof, though their arrangement is unfamiliar to her now. She’s on a foreign planet, in some foreign system…

         Rey’s never realized, until now, how much she hated Jakku. She had no point of comparison before, but now when she remembers the blistering sun, the endless sand, the hunger and thirst and soul crushing boredom, she finds them repellant. She doesn’t want to go back. Still, Rey can’t help but anxiously imagine that her family has returned to Jakku looking for her, and she’s missed them.

         But Kylo has promised to find them. He’s sworn to leave word with several contacts on Jakku to watch out for anyone inquiring after her, and to put out holonet alerts looking for a family that left a child at Niima Outpost fifteen years ago. He’s explained how, once they rejoin the First Order, they can sample her DNA and cross reference it with dozens of databases. It is this offer that finally convinced her to go, more than the promise of training and the tales of Force users. The idea of using a lightsaber was somewhat enticing, but Rey has never been particularly interested in anything other than survival and finding her family. It is hard to think about having goals other than the next day’s rations.

         A moon progresses across the triangular sections of visible sky while another small satellite gives a steadfast glow nearer the horizon. By their light Rey can just make out Kylo’s sleeping form across the floor. He doesn’t snore, thank goodness, but sleeps peacefully on his side facing her. His black mop of hair curls around his temples and his pale face nearly glows in the dim moonlight. The shiny scar is his most prominent feature, and it’s particularly unfortunate because Rey thinks he was probably very classically handsome before someone sliced his face.

         She likes him, in general. He’s friendly. Perhaps a bit too friendly, as if he’s making an effort to impress her. There’s something vaguely familiar about him and it makes her uneasy. Still, Kylo hasn’t given her any reason to distrust him beyond being _nice_. Rey is fully aware that she has deficient experience with people who aren’t trying to steal her portions. Sometimes a nice person is just a nice person, and not someone who wants something from her. She’s read enough trashy, romantic holobooks to know that not everyone in the galaxy is as distrusting as she usually is, though perhaps they’d be safer if they were. Then again, perhaps she’d be happier if she were not.

         Kylo swallows and huffs a breath in his sleep. Rey finds she’s staring a bit too long at his full, wide mouth and turns over on her futon to face the wall.

          _He_ _’s your teacher. Don’t make it complicated._

         Rey closes her eyes and makes an effort to think of nothing at all. Finally, she finds sleep.

         But her dreams are troubled.

          _The acrid scents of burnt carbon and sulfur accompany a jarring scene: a cold forest, like the one she saw this morning_ _but somehow the trees are different_ _. Their leaves are_ _thin, needle-like. Tiny crystals of ice coat everything in wet, fluffy piles but the forest is aflame nonetheless, and the ground itself feels warm to the touch. She_ _’s crouching with her hand in the loamy litter at her feet when the forest trembles and roars, and the ground splits at her feet to reveal a chasm of fire…_

         Sweaty and startled, Rey suddenly wakes to sunlight streaming over her face. The room is uncomfortably warm, but there is a heavenly smell emanating from the living space that makes her stomach rumble. The idea of eating more than once a day feels positively indulgent, and the dream is soon forgotten in her race to dress and find out what the First Order considers a standard-fare breakfast.

\- - - - -

         Like Shii-Cho, Soresu takes her barely a day to master. Rey’s feet fly across the spongy earth, her arms whipping to block the projectiles Kylo hurls at her with the Force. She barely has to think to avoid the attacks, and actually finds the exercise somewhat dull. So the next day Kylo switches gears to train her in meditation, and Rey thinks she might be better at it than Kylo from the very beginning. After a decade and a half of living alone in the desert, sitting quietly and thinking about nothing is as natural as breathing for her. Makashi, a form designed for lightsaber dueling, is only a hair more difficult, and when Rey manages to learn it in a pair of afternoons he declares her ready for sparring.

         But finally, today, Kylo has found something Rey must actually concentrate to learn.

         Levitating the stones is easy, not to mention absolutely delightful. Rey can feel the Force rather easily when she clears her mind; it flows around them in little strings of power and intention, like a web where every strand is in constant motion. Rey discovers quickly that she can pluck the strings, nudge and coax them to make things move against the laws of physics. She is almost giddy, at first. It is like suddenly finding out that she can fly: pure joy and playful fascination.

         Balancing the stones—all five of them, with the smallest on the bottom of the stack—is far more difficult. Plucking the strings of power weaving around them is nowhere near nuanced enough, and sends them shooting every which way as the vibrating strands touch each other and her manipulations ripple through them all. To Rey’s immense vexation, her little stack of weather-worn rocks tumbles over again and again.

         She’s staring at them, biting her tongue as she concentrates on the stack of three that’s teetering a few feet from her crossed legs. She levitates the fourth, a flat oblong stone the size of her head, to the top of the wobbly pile. It quivers and Rey reaches out with a clawed hand, fingers stretched and bent to keep the little strings of the Force from touching and spreading the discordant vibrations. It’s like a terribly frustrating game of cat’s cradle that gets one pummeled by rocks when they lose.

         Suddenly Rey shouts and ducks as the stack violently collapses, sending stones careening in random directions with enough force to crush bone.

          “Damn it!” She shouts, raking her clawed hand through the air to rip at the tendrils of power. The trees before her creak and snap and a branch falls several yards away. There are heavy footsteps behind her, and Rey seethes quietly as Kylo places a hand on her shoulder.

          “Take a deep breath,” he orders her in a calm, commanding tone that quickly reminds her that this man is a military leader. Rey obeys, huffing through flared nostrils. “Feel that anger? That frustration? That’s a tool, Rey. You’re trying to be precise with your manipulations, but you aren’t commanding the Force. You’re making requests and suggestions, being gentle with it… maybe, if you practiced for a year or so, you could learn enough control to balance the stones that way. But it’s far more efficient to take control of the Force and bend it to your will. Quit playing nicely with it and put that anger to use.”

         Rey nods, lips curled in tightly. She gathers up her stones and tries again, but this time she grabs the strands in her hands and yanks at them, winding them around her fingers until they’re pulled taught.

         Kylo’s breath is in her ear, long fingers gripping her shoulder harder. His voice takes on a hard, urgent edge. “More intention, Rey. Be forceful. Make it do what you want.”

         Rey tightens her grip until the tendrils are stretched to their breaking point and then starts to manipulate them one by one. With the web of power frozen, she can move each strand individually. Finding the right placement is still a challenge, but one by one her stones glide into place. The tower doesn’t teeter this time, except when her mind wavers or her fingers twitch. With her full concentration, it’s as steady as permacrete.

         Kylo gives a little hum, squeezing and then releasing her shoulder. “Excellently done, Rey.”

         Lips curling into a smug grin, Rey suddenly clenches her fists and jerks her hands back. She feels the strands of power twist together and snap with an audible crack, and the stones crush as if she’s squeezed them to dust in her fists. The tower is reduced to a pile of gray sand, and Rey can’t hide her glee at destroying the rocks that have been pummeling her all day.

         Mere inches from her ear, Kylo sucks in a breath.  She turns to find him staring at her, clear brown eyes boring into her with an intensity that knocks the air from her lungs. His full lips are parted, and his tongue peeks out to wet them.

          “Don’t be afraid,” he whispers.

         Strange words pop into her mind and before she can contemplate them they’re spilling out of her mouth, like a refrain she’s heard a thousand times and can’t help but finish aloud: “I feel it too.”

         She doesn’t know why she says it. Rey looks away quickly, embarrassed, her gaze dropping to her fidgeting hands. Then his knee bumps hers, and long fingers brush a loose hair from her temple…

         Rey scrabbles clumsily to her feet, heart hammering. She plasters a smile to her face and feigns a pleasant tone. “If we’re done, I think I’ll take a walk.”

         Without waiting for a response, she all but bolts in a random direction through the trees. Rey half expects Kylo to follow, but he doesn’t and before long she is alone amongst the foliage. Even so, Kylo’s eyes are burned into her mind, staring and consuming; the gaze of a starving scavenger eying a pile of portions that don’t belong to him and weighing the consequences of giving in to instinct. Rey is decidedly uncomfortable, though she can’t determine if it has more to do with Kylo’s demeanor or her own, involuntary response: her heart is pounding from her chest, her skin tingles where he’s touched her, and there’s fire burning in her abdomen that has nothing to do with the warm weather.

          _I feel it too._

         A breeze, Rey decides, would do her nerves a world of good.

         The compound is out of sight now, and Rey slows her pace. The air is heavy with humidity, and not the slightest gust disturbs the thick ferns and shrubs that dot the space between tall gray tree trunks. Still the forest is noisy with the chirping, clicking, knocking and fluttering of birds and insects and things far stranger. Shielding her eyes against the glare streaming through the canopy, Rey notes the sun’s position and heads toward the shoreline.

         A flash of white and gray catches her eye ahead, and at first Rey thinks she’s miscalculated her position and come upon the cliffs already. But it isn’t moving, and when she squints Rey can see that it’s a man. He’s clad in some loose fitting white garment with a gray cloak, with unkempt brown hair and a beard. He’s facing her, and Rey stops short about a hundred yards away, wary of the stranger. He seems almost to shimmer in the air like a star, flickering out if she looks at him too directly.

         “Hello?” she calls, shielding her eyes again. But the figure doesn’t answer and begins to turn away. Rey follows, picking up her pace until she’s running clumsily through the forest, cursing the roots and stones that get in the way of feet more used to trudging through sand than sprinting through leaf litter. “Hey!” she calls again, and realizes suddenly that the woods have fallen silent save for her stomping and crashing through the underbrush, all the birds and insects suddenly hushed.

         Bursting out of the trees and onto the rocky cliff’s edge, Rey is buffeted by a gust of wind from the ocean that chills her to the bone and sends her shivering. But there is the old man, standing amongst the rocks and staring at her with weary eyes. Rey opens her mouth to say something, but he suddenly moves, throws up his arm… he’s holding something, his hand turned to offer it to her. Rey can’t tell quite what it is: a metal cylinder, black and gray, with a switch on one side. Without thinking Rey reaches out to take the curious thing—

         But the apparition vanishes before she can touch it.

         Rey blinks against the sunlight, disoriented. The forest at her back is noisy and the hot, still air weighs down on her again. She shakes her head, feeling as if she’s just woken up suddenly from a daze. But her legs are scraped and sore from running, and her hand is still extended towards the sea…

\- - - - -

          “It’s nothing,” Kylo insists later, when Rey describes the man to him.

          “It wasn’t nothing. You’re worried, I can tell.” Rey replies. Kylo’s lips are pursed and his brows are furrowed, and he’s clenching his fist.

         With a sigh, Kylo relents. “It was probably a hallucination. You were dehydrated. It was my fault. I should have made you take a break when we were practicing with the stones.” At the mention of the lesson, Rey’s breath catches in her throat. The way Kylo looked at her, the desire and barely controlled aggression, has her body back on high alert.

         Her throat bobs as she swallows. “You’re probably right. I think I’ll go get a drink.”

         Rey can feel his eyes on her sweat-soaked back as the door to the shelter rattles closed behind her.

\- - - - -

         With combat training in the morning, Force techniques in the afternoon, and meditation at dawn and dusk, the days fly by in a blur. Rey quickly finds that performing a form perfectly is a very different feat from holding her own against Kylo in a duel. He’s a malevolent force and Rey is completely outmatched, a contrast not helped by the fact that her teacher has no intention of pulling punches for her.

          “If you keep turning your bare side like that you’re going to lose a kidney! Either block properly or stop turning to the left!”

         Rey winces and palpates her side, already blooming with bruises. For such a large opponent Kylo is dreadfully fast, and he has a habit of whirling his practice weapon in circles that give his swings powerful momentum. Rey has no idea how to properly counter them without getting knocked over, and the only advice Kylo offers is that she should be using the Force to enhance her movements and anticipate his attacks. Rey isn’t sure how to achieve any of this yet, and so their sparring sessions grow progressively more frustrating. It isn’t just the difference in their skill level—Kylo’s strength and speed feel almost superhuman. Rey knows he is using the Force somehow to achieve this, and it seems infuriatingly unfair.

         Straightening into the beginning pose of Makashi, Rey keeps her left elbow in tight at her damaged side and circles around Kylo to the right, turned slightly to make herself a narrower target. He’s twirling his blade in circles behind his back in anticipation of her attack, and Rey waits until he’s mid-swing before darting forwards. She feints a jab to his right and then swings wide in a vindictive attempt to hit him in the same spot that he landed a moment ago.

          “Too slow!” Kylo roars, catching her wooden blade with an upward slice, an extension of the whirling swings he’s been making, and it knocks her pole right from her hand. Rey’s wrist wrenches painfully as she tries to hold onto the training sword and she winces and pulls her arm into her chest. But Kylo doesn’t back off. Rey raises her arms to protect herself and cries out as a powerful swing bounces off her elbow, then ducks to avoid a sideways cut aimed at her head.

          “I yield!” She gasps, stumbling backwards until her back hits a tree trunk. But Kylo ignores her surrender and presses his weapon across her right shoulder and the left side of her neck, pinning her to the tree with enough strength to compress her windpipe. Struggling and straining for breath, Rey is shocked to see that he is smiling at her—that teasing smirk, one corner of his mouth playfully turned up as if he weren’t about to choke her to death.

         Fury begins to burn in Rey’s chest, the same white-hot frustration she felt after her tower of stones tumbled over for the thousandth time. Rey grabs the ends of the pole and _shoves,_ pushing as hard as she possibly can and channeling her anger into a percussive ripple through the Force without even thinking.

          “I said _I yield_!”

Kylo flies backward, skids along the forest floor and Rey takes advantage of the moment. Leaping forward and retrieving her stick from a nearby bush, she stalks to where he lies. He’s breathless on his back, dirt and leaves and small spots of blood smeared across his bare chest. He gets an arm beneath him and rises on one elbow, and his hair is slick with sweat, the scar bisecting his face pink and puckered. The sight hits Rey like a blow to the chest.

         She’s seen this before.

         Darkness swims before her eyes and her head begins to pound. A forest on fire, a line of blood across icy pale skin, a blue glow…

         Before she can recover from the vision Kylo is on his feet. He tosses his wooden sword to the ground, but the predatory expression remains. He closes the distance between them in four quick strides and grabs Rey by the arms, grinding the bones in her right wrist until she drops her weapon.

         Then, before Rey can process pain, fear, or anger, he kisses her.

         His parted lips just barely brush hers, grazing her mouth with shocking tenderness. He nuzzles his nose lightly against her cheekbone, and Rey can feel his warm breath on her lips as he whispers, “Yes. That’s it.”

         She’s frozen in place, unable to move, unable to think. The fire in her abdomen is back, flames licking up her hips and searing her ribcage. Kylo loosens his grip on her arms and pulls away, and she leans forward involuntarily, her body aching to prolong contact even as her mind rails against this violent intrusion. Then he smirks at her, that infuriatingly superior expression and Rey crosses her arms over her chest to hide her flush. He has no right to do this. He is her _teacher._ Is he _trying_ humiliate her? Is he actually teasing her on purpose?            

         While Rey shudders with breathless confusion, Kylo switches easily back to a professorial tone as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. “That is the ferocity you need to bring to every fight. Against a stronger opponent, passion is the best weapon you have. The Force responds to it.  Make the Force your ally or your opponent will make it theirs.”

         Rey’s mind lingers too long on the word _passion_ , with all its myriad meanings. A phrase echoes in her mind, disembodied and strange: _There is no passion, only peace_ _…_ but Rey doesn’t understand what it means.

          “We’re done, I think.” Kylo announces, brushing dirt and damp leaves from his arms. “Go shower. I’ll make dinner.”

         Rey obeys, her limbs wooden as they carry her into the gleaming ‘fresher. The beat of water on her back soothes away the aches and tension, but Rey is still not at ease. It’s as if he is toying with her, teasing her. As if he knows her better than she knows herself—how her mind and body will respond. He knows how far to push her to make her lash out, and the kiss…

         Rey has no idea what his game is, but a part of her desperately wants to play.

         Rey turns the knob until the water is scalding, and slips a shaking hand between her slippery thighs.

 - - - - -

          _She is back in the forest, green and noisy and warm, walking on springy ground. Suddenly there is a great deal of crashing and buzzing, electrical_ _sounds_ _that Rey can_ _’t quite place. She peers over her shoulder to see an imposing figure_ _—_ _tall and clad all in black, with a helmet that glints in the dappled sunlight and a black leather mask. It’s wielding a sword that looks to be made of fire, slashing through the underbrush and setting it aflame. Rey’s eyes widen, and her entire being sharpens down to a single, panicked point of awareness:_

          _RUN._

          _She bolts, tearing through thickets and scrabbling over fallen trees_ _. Every_ _rock and root_ _conspires_ _to trip her_ _,_ _and_ _Rey is sure_ _that she will be killed_ _if she falls._ _The monster is right behind her_ _—_ _she can feel the heat of the sword, hear the creature_ _’s mechanical breathing—and just as she considers trying to scale a tree as a last resort_ _her body stiffens as though frozen in ice. Her muscles are seizing painfully, her limbs rigid as stone, her face stuck in a permanent expression of pure terror._

          _The black creature circles her, stalking like a predator sizing up its prey. Then half of_ _Rey’s_ _visual field goes red as it holds the crackling, humming sword next to her cheek. She can feel the heat of it, can feel her skin blistering_ _—_

         Rey bolts upright in bed with a breathless gasp. She’s sweat-soaked and sore, clawing at her clammy cheek to soothe a burn that isn’t there. Panting heavily, Rey pulls her knees to her chest and rakes fingers through her damp hair. Her heart is pounding in her chest, and when she finally feels the rush of adrenaline start to abate she has to fight to keep herself from crying.

          _It_ _’s not real. It’s just a dream._

         But it _felt_ real _…_

         The forest outside Rey and Kylo’s little dome seems suddenly ominous. Rey huddles beneath her blanket, hyper-aware of every leaf that rustles, every flutter of wings. She’s biting her lip raw, staring vigilantly into the darkness through the window panels for any distant sign of a fiery red sword…

         Two yards away, Kylo sighs in his sleep. Rey looks at him, solid and still, his face strangely peaceful when he isn’t smirking at her or dismantling her with a heated glance. His lips are parted and Rey remembers how they felt, almost plush as they brushed against her own. Finally, knowing full well that she may as well be poking a scorpion with a stick, Rey tugs her futon over and butts it up against Kylo’s. She forces herself to turn away from the forest, to believe that if there were a monster with a red sword coming for her (highly unlikely), Kylo Ren would protect her. Laying down beside him, she curls up on her side by his muscular arm, her hand just an inch from the scarred skin.

         This close, she can feel his energy through the Force. It’s dark and deep and still, and it relaxes her. Nestled beside her unwitting bodyguard, Rey finds a dreamless sleep.

\- - - - -

         A pale light is shining through the clear panels of their shelter, and lonely chirps signal the early hour. Rey yawns and moves to stretch, only to find something heavy over her stomach, holding her in place.

         It’s an arm. _Kylo_ _’s_ arm.

         He’s pulled her against him in his sleep: her back brushing his chest, her thighs against his knees. Rey scarcely dares to breathe, caught between the thrill of this intimate contact and the mortification of her actions last night—climbing into his bed after a nightmare like a child. If she were looking for a way to earn her teacher’s respect, this is surely not it.

         But his arm feels so right tucked around her waist, and his breath rustling her hair is divine. Rey recalls their kiss the night before: the steely grip of his long fingers on her wrist, the velvet brush of his lips…

         He’s stirring behind her and Rey snaps her eyes closed and pretends to sleep, certain the hammer of her heart will give her away. At first he seems frozen. He barely breathes, and his arm goes stiff against her belly. But then he pulls her in closer and nuzzles her hair, letting out a slow, shaky breath. His hand kneads her hip, and Rey gives an involuntary spasm at the intimate contact, something between rolling her hips and jerking away from him.

          “I had a nightmare,” Rey croaks awkwardly. He freezes again, then pulls his arm from her waist as she rolls over to face him. He’s blinking the sleep from his eyes, his forehead drawn and neck corded with tension. “I panicked. I’m sorry.”

         He shakes his head, staring at her with a sleepier version of his usual self-satisfied smile. “Don’t be. It’s a fine way to wake up.”

          “I shouldn’t have… invaded your space,” Rey continues hoarsely, but Kylo just shakes his head again.

         “It’s fine,” he repeats, blinking the sleep from half-lidded eyes. “What was your nightmare?”

          “I was being chased by a monster in a mask.” Rey winces, suddenly embarrassed to admit it. “It had this sword that was on fire… I couldn’t run, and I think it was about to kill me.”

         His lip twitches and for a moment he doesn’t say anything—Rey is certain that he’s about to admonish her for being so frightened of a silly dream. But instead he looks at her with furrowed brows and a frown, and Rey realizes that he is genuinely concerned. “That sounds terrifying,” he finally replies.

         Rey only shrugs, feeling more and more childish.

          “Rest assured that there are no masked monsters on this planet. I had it scouted.” He’s smiling just slightly, brow quirked, and Rey is grateful for the levity.

          “Promise?” she asks, raising her eyebrows in mock skepticism.

         He grins, and it’s the most genuine smile Rey thinks she’s ever seen from him. No smirk, no sarcasm. It’s beautiful on his face, Rey thinks—wide and warm and comforting.

         “Promise,” he replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *phew* Things got a bit more heated!
> 
> This concludes the first act. Act II will begin on Sunday.
> 
> (Cutting it up into acts feels a bit cheesy now, but when I was writing it the point was to mimic the structure of a tragic greek play. That doesn't come across as well when I'm splitting it up into "chapters" to post here, but posting each act as a stand alone chapter would result in reeeeeeaaaaaally long chapters. So that's the logic there, in case you're wondering. You're probably not though.)


	4. Act II, part 1

Act II

         Rey can scarcely believe she managed to make it two whole months without climbing a tree.

         Kylo has kept her busy with forms, meditation, telekinetics, sparring, and the occasional history lesson when she was resting a mild injury here and there. There has also been the small matter of basic physical conditioning. She’s still a clumsy runner, but her endurance is better than ever and she’s gotten much quieter, particularly when she moves slowly and uses the Force to muffle her steps. Her minimal leisure time has been spent nursing sore muscles, and sleeping barely makes it into the schedule. Kylo has carefully made time for regular meals, however, even interrupting tasks to demand that she eat. It’s thoughtful of him, Rey thinks, if a bit intrusive.

         Climbing hasn’t been on Kylo’s agenda for training, but Rey misses the adrenaline rush of being far from the ground, seconds from injury or death, depending only on her ability to gauge her hand and footholds and balance herself. The tree is, as she suspected, little different from scaling the interior of the _Inflictor_. It’s easier, even, with a rougher surface to brace against than the star destroyer’s smooth steel planes. Before long she’s on the highest branch that will support her, perhaps fifty feet from the ground. From this height she can see their shelter, the beach, the cliffs, and the endless sea stretching, clear and blue, to the shimmering horizon. The sea breeze plays with her hair, lifting and pulling at it with phantom fingers. It’s cooler than it used to be. Rey closes her eyes and faces into the wind, listening to the buzz and hum of the forest and the distant shushing of the ocean.

         And Kylo Ren, at the base of the tree, having a complete fit. Rey opens her eyes and gives them an exaggerated roll, which she hopes he can see. 

         “I’m fine! I used to do this all the time and I’ve never once fallen,” she shouts down to her red-faced teacher. He’s at the base of the massive tree, pacing and demanding she come down.

         “A tree branch is not durasteel! We have limited medical capabilities-”

         “You have a freaking hospital compared to what I grew up with!”

         It’s selfish, but Rey enjoys the rare moments when she can throw Kylo off balance for a change. It allows some small payback for the myriad moments when he’s done the same to her. In isolation, they’re innocuous things- brushing against her as they pass in the galley, touching her shoulder or her hair as she meditates, the heated stares and blatant vain displays. But on the whole it has been maddening- especially when they seem to spend so much of their time stripped down and sweating, beating one another with sticks. He hasn’t kissed her again, and Rey has carefully managed to avoid nightmare-fueled cuddling. But Rey can’t deny that she thinks of him at night as she lies awake, peering up at the strange stars in this strange sky.

         Forcing him to worry over her safety isn’t a kind game to play, but at least he isn’t the only one playing a game. Exercising her own small power over him is the only thing keeping Rey from going completely crazy.

         As if the visions, dreams, and constant deja-vu didn’t prove that she already was.

         More and more, Rey feels as if bits and pieces of her life are being repeated. Movements and phrases feel familiar, and she sometimes finds herself finishing Kylo’s sentences in her head or casually mentioning things that she can’t remember learning about. Kylo catches her sometimes, demanding to know how she knows anything about the Stormtrooper program or Jedi mind tricks. Rey cannot answer, and the more it happens the more uneasy she becomes. There is something wrong, something just outside her awareness that she can’t pull into the light of day.

         She thinks it must have something to do with the prospect of finding her family, which is more real now than it has ever been before. It could be an emotional trauma from childhood, or just half-remembered details from before she was abandoned on Jakku. She tries to dismiss the episodes, unsettling as they are, but it would be easier to do without the dreams and visions plaguing her as well.

         The masked monster hasn’t returned, thankfully, but most nights she still has odd dreams about the forest catching fire. She’s seen the old man in the woods three more times and tried her best to chase him down, but hasn’t been able to catch up with him again. Rey is afraid to contemplate what it means- either she is crazy, or the woods are haunted. Either way, Rey hasn’t mentioned it to Kylo, nor has she mentioned the dreams. She worries that if he thinks she is unhinged he won’t train her. She doesn’t want to go back to Jakku, to a life of mediocre insignificance. Not now, when she knows what she’d be missing. This beautiful world, the heady power of the Force… and Kylo Ren.

         A shift in the breeze interrupts Rey’s thoughts. A blustery wind has picked up, turning the leaves over and swaying her perch. From her vantage point Rey can see towering dark clouds rolling in from the sea, and a distant rumbling startles her.

         “Rey, get down here _now!_ ” Kylo bellows, his face blanching.

         Instead of complying, Rey eyes the deep gray fingers of cloud reaching over the forest. The sound comes again, like a thrumming echo that rolls over and beyond them. “What _is_ that?”

         “It’s an electrical storm,” he shouts up to her, his voice edged with a panic that Rey doesn’t yet understand. “Get on the ground this instant!”

         The sound comes again, frighteningly loud this time. It rumbles in her very bones, and a primal fear begins to claw at the inside of her chest. Rey sees a white finger of static jump between the ground and the clouds and her eyes burst wide with an involuntary yelp. She immediately begins to scrabble down the rough trunk to which she’s been clinging. The danger of this strange new weather pattern is instinctual, as much as the formidable sand storms on Jakku. But falling from this height is an unacceptable risk, so she takes time to make sure of her footing even as the rain begins to fall.

         She’s seen rain in the two months she’s spent in the forest. At first it was marvelous: she couldn’t believe that fresh water poured down from the sky at regular intervals. Water was, and still is, so precious to her that it might as well have been raining gold. But then it became more tiresome, with rainy days signaling a dull day of meditation, reading, and rehearsing forms indoors. The drizzling sometimes went on for days at a time until Rey thought she’d go stir-crazy.

         This is, she discovers, an entirely different sort of rain.

         Within minutes the sky has opened. Torrents of water are pelting the leaves, making the wood beneath her hands and feet slippery. All the while the rumbling sounds, louder each time, accompanied by cracks and crashes as arcs of electricity rend the sky, lighting up the dark underbellies of storm clouds. It takes barely ten minutes for Rey to reach the forest floor, hale and whole, but the storm is fully upon them by then and Rey is drenched, sore, and chilled to the bone.

         “We need to get inside,” Kylo hisses, dragging her arm towards the shelter a few hundred yards away. They run for it, slipping over wet leaves with arms raised to shield their faces from the sheets of water pelting the forest.

         The wind blows the door to the dome wide open as soon as Kylo turns the knob and they gracelessly tumble inside. Kylo pushes the door closed against the wind and immediately runs to the little wood stove beside the armchairs, cursing her as he loads in split logs and fights to get them lit.

         “I told you to _get down_ from there. I told you it was _dangerous_ -”

         His words only half register as Rey begins to shiver. Her clothes are soaked, her hair slick and stuck to her scalp, as if she’d been dipped into the ocean. Rey wraps her arms around herself and tries to control her muscles, but her teeth begin to chatter right about the time that Kylo manages to light the fire.

         “-wanted to deal with this level of stubbornness, I could have stayed on the _Finalizer_ with that damn ginger and his tin can of a captain.” He turns to her, nose crinkled with disdain. “I should not have to invoke military rank to get you to listen to a warning about _safety._ There are some issues about which you just don’t argue, understand?”

         Rey nods emphatically, with a sniffle to prove her sincerity. Then a crack of thunder sounds, and she nearly jumps out of her dripping skin.

         Kylo is there before she knows what’s happened, pulling her in with thick arms that seem to radiate warmth. Rey glances up, green eyes wide, and for a moment his gaze locks onto hers with an intensity that steals her breath. The moment hangs—the two of them frozen chest-to-chest, chilled and dripping puddles onto the brushed steel floor—a drawn out second of suspense before his lips crash against hers.

         It is nothing like his last kiss. Instead of the teasing tenderness, the barely-there brush of lips, this is almost violent—a passionate punch in the teeth. They’re both clammy and shuddering, but warmth quickly spreads up from Rey’s core as he tangles long fingers in her hair and presses the small of her back, cradling her against him with a fierce possessiveness that thrills and almost frightens her. Rey parts her lips and Kylo all but devours her, holding tight to the back of her head. The fire is building within her again, tickling her ribs and burning her thighs, scorching each point of contact between them. Rey returns the kiss, her tongue dipping into him timidly at first, then less and less chaste as her hands begin to roam. Rey claws at his well-muscled shoulders and tugs at the drenched fabric stuck to his chest, cups the chilled edges of his jawbone, traces the shell of his ear. Finally, gasping, Kylo tugs at her hair and pulls his face from hers, eyes hazy with want.

         “You could have been _killed._ The next time I tell you to get out of a kriffing tree-”

         Rey nods breathlessly and pulls his lips back to hers, burying her hands in the black curls that she’s longed to touch for two endless months. “No more trees,” she sighs between kisses, nudging his body backwards towards the warm glow of the wood stove. “Promise.”

         Kylo hums his approval against her lips and drags her down into one of the armchairs. He kneels between her knees and tangles a hand in her hair, holding her steady against him as he brushes swollen lips along her jaw and down the side of her neck. His teeth graze her collarbone and Rey rolls her hips against his waist. She’s shuddering still, but not from cold.

         “Kylo,” she pants, eyes closing as he eases long, calloused fingers under the hem of her shirt to tease the skin over her ribs.

         “Tell me what you want,” he hums into the crook of her neck. He traces the bumps of her spine and smiles as she arches against him in response. “I need to hear you say it.”

         Rey tries to gather her thoughts, tries to sort through the myriad motives and desires running through her mind. She knows where they are headed. She recalls an embarrassing encounter with a scavenger boy: ten unsatisfying minutes of awkward fumbling and sloppy grabbing that ended abruptly with a humiliated grunt. They never looked each other in the eye again. But that encounter is as distinct from this one as a Jakku ration is from dinner at the Senate. Both are meals, but beyond that all comparison dies.

         Still, there is the possibility that the outcome will be the same. Rey tries to imagine Kylo avoiding her glances, the expectant tension between them replaced with something distant and silent. Rey can’t picture it, and in the liquid heat of the moment she doesn’t care anyway: she can’t stand another day dancing skittishly around him. But Rey doesn’t know how to say it, and even if she could find the words she isn’t sure she could force them out around the lump in her throat.

         When she doesn’t respond, Kylo relaxes his hold in her hair and gently eases away to catch her glazed eyes with his own. “Rey,” he begins softly, his face soft and open as he speaks. “I only want this if you do. If you want me to touch you, if you want to forget this happened and go to bed… tell me.”

         Swallowing, Rey manages to choke out a response. “I want to get out of these wet clothes.”

         Kylo blinks, then nods slowly before sitting back on his heels with a sigh.

         Rey sniffs and swallows again, rising shakily from the chair. Then, deliberately slowly, she begins to pull off her drenched clothes.

         Rey imagines how awkward it must look, how obviously amateur she must seem as she peels the soaked fabric from her too-skinny limbs. But Kylo is riveted, his dejected expression abruptly switching to one of wonder and heated anticipation. Eyes wide and staring, lips parted, he watches as she pulls her shirt over her wet hair. It slaps against the steel floor when she drops it, and her gray leggings peel away from her clammy calves like a shedding skin. Then Rey wiggles out of her breast band and underwear, balling them up and letting them fall at her feet. She’s nude, chilly goosebumps rising on her damp skin, and now Kylo’s eyes rove over her. He doesn’t move the slightest inch, just stares at her bare body the way a scavenger stares at a canteen of water in late afternoon.

         He stares for what feels like an eternity, and a blush radiates down from Rey’s cheeks to her breasts. “Now you,” she finally demands, slouching bashfully against the fire of his gaze.

         Hints of a playful smile tease the corners of his mouth as he stands and removes his shirt, his boots and slacks, and finally his tight black shorts. Rey stares now, visually tracing the myriad scars and blemishes scattered over his skin, and the impressive musculature just beneath. He is, Rey thinks, extraordinarily well formed. Closing the distance between them, Kylo cups her flushed cheeks with both hands and then rakes them through her damp hair, shaking it loose from her trio of rain-drenched knots. His hard chest brushes her nipples, standing at attention from the chill, and Rey shudders and closes her eyes.

         His hands ghost over her upper arms to rest lightly on her ribcage, and Rey can feel his breath on her ear as he asks, “What next, gorgeous girl?”

         Rey is too nervous to answer out loud, but she balls a loose fist in his soft curls and guides his head to her chest. With a singular reverence, Kylo closes his mouth—those divine lips, Rey thinks, the ones she been staring at each night as she fights to sleep—over the tip of her breast, gently gathering it his solid hands. Her knees loosen and she sways, panting as tension begins to build just beneath her skin. Kylo pauses to help her back into the chair, kneeling between her knees again as he kneads and gathers first one breast and then the other, flicking his tongue against each pebbled bud in turn until Rey is arching wantonly into his hands. Hooking her ankles around his thighs, Rey reaches for him with her hips.

         She’s _aching_ , an indescribable need that consumes all logic and sense.

         Kylo rests his forehead on her sternum and grips her hips, squeezing them in rhythm with her rolling movements. “Tell me what you want,” he repeats, all the smug sarcasm gone from his tone.

         “ _You!_ ” Rey wails, wrapping her arms tight around his neck to press herself against him. “I want—I want you—” she sputters, unable to get the words out.

         Long fingers tangle in her hair to steady her tossing head. Kylo brings them nose to nose, his voice guttural and hard. “You want me to fuck you, Rey?” He’s gripping her thigh, thumb grazing the damp curls between her legs. Rey nods frantically and makes a strangled little sound, bucking against his hand. “Out loud,” he demands.

         “Yes! Maker, please Kylo—” but her plea is cut off by a long groan as he slips a finger inside her. She’s shamefully wet, and when Kylo slides his slickened finger out and up to rub at her clit, Rey shrieks behind clenched teeth and buries her head in the curve of his neck. He does it again, slipping in and out and up and around in a heady rhythm that Rey matches with her hips.

         The intensity builds, coiling in her abdominal muscles until the tension is maddening. Rey is frantic, her hands roaming from Kylo’s shoulders to his chest to his biceps to his hair… and when she thinks she can’t possibly stand it another moment he pauses to stand and position himself. He mounts her torturously slowly, slipping in a mere inch at a time while Rey holds her breath. Holding her hips firmly against his, Kylo rests his knees on the chair so Rey is pressed tight between him and the soft leather at her back. She hooks her ankles behind him and presses her forehead to his collarbone, with the puckered skin of his long scar across her eyelids. Rey breathes deeply as he pulls his hips back and then moans into his chest as he plunges forward again.

         The pace Kylo sets is excruciating. Each withdrawal is slow torture, each snapping thrust an assault. Rey is mewling and squirming around him, rolling her hips and clawing his shoulders with only one comprehensible thought: _more, more, **more.**_

         Finally his control seems to fray. He’s growling and groaning as he shoves into her, faster and harder until the coiled tension in Rey’s core shatters and she’s screaming and shaking against him. Kylo rides her a minute or two more, pumping so quickly that he’s panting and gleaming with sweat by the time he releases inside her with a guttural shout.

         Hard, slick arms encircle her waist and lift her from the chair, but Rey barely notices. She’s still shaking and gasping, clinging to Kylo like a lifeline as he carries her into the bedroom and lies her down on her futon. He’s tucking blankets around her, and Rey feels him press a wet kiss to her forehead. For a long time Rey just lies still, breathing heavily and letting the feeling return to her legs. She floats in and out of awareness, and it isn’t until she’s finally able to form coherent thoughts that she processes his absence.

         “Kylo?” she breathes, turning her head to see his empty futon beside her. Then the thunder sounds and a flash of white illuminates the room, and she bolts upright. The storm is still going, the pounding of the rain so rhythmic and constant that she almost forgot it was there. “Kylo?” she calls again, louder this time.

         “Coming!” is the reply, and a moment later he ducks through the doorway, arms laden with bowls and mugs. He’s still nude, still glistening with sweat. It’s only been a few minutes, Rey realizes, and a heavenly smell is coming from the galley. He kicks his bed across the floor until it’s flush with hers, then kneels and hands her a bowl. “You need to eat, and drink something warm.”

         It’s rice, green seedpods and some pale shredded meat in a thick sweet sauce, but Rey puts it aside for a moment to scoot forward and press against him, burying her face in his shoulder. For a moment Kylo freezes, his hands still awkwardly full, but then he sets his bowl and the pair of mugs on the steel floor and wraps thick arms around her, his enormous hands capping her narrow shoulders. Rey inhales deeply, nuzzling at his chest, and he smells woody, like charcoal and smoke. His name feels so right in her mouth, round and sensual, and she breathes it against his cool skin. He hums in response, sighs contentedly, and for a moment neither of them have the will to pull away. But Finally Kylo lets go and leans sideways, pushing the discarded bowl and mug of tea back into her hands. “While they’re hot, Rey.”

         She reluctantly complies, though she’d much rather drift off to sleep in his arms. Kylo stretches out beside her, long legs crossed, to eat his own supper.

         Rey eyes him surreptitiously, this near-stranger, her teacher, her _lover_ now. He takes deliberate bites, savors them with an obvious mindfulness that Rey can’t seem to replicate as she shoves rice into her mouth as quickly as she can. She swallows a mouthful of rice and asks, “So now that we’ve… gotten to know each other a bit—” He makes an amused grunt around his mouthful, and Rey can’t help but grin at the absurdity. “Maybe you’ll tell me who you really are.”

         She meant very little by it, but the request knocks the amused expression right off of Kylo’s face. Suddenly frowning, he furrows his brows and turns his head to face her. “What do you mean?” he asks slowly, his voice low and guarded.

         Rey shrugs casually and takes a sip of tea. “You know all about me, since you’re looking for my family. What about your family? Where are you from? How did you end up with the First Order?”

         Rey is surprised by how taken aback he is by the questions, which seem innocuous enough to her. For a while Kylo doesn’t say anything, just chews slowly. Finally, he quietly replies, “My mother was a war criminal and my father was a thief. We lived on Coruscant, and they were doing a poor job raising me. Supreme Leader Snoke offered to train me in the Force, but my mother refused and sent me to live with her brother instead… he’s a sort of religious fanatic, a terrorist from the civil war. Eventually I ran away.”

         Rey’s mouth falls open as he speaks, her wide eyes sympathetic. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried. I didn’t think—”

         Kylo shakes his head. “It’s no worse than your story, Rey.”

         It’s true, Rey thinks sadly. Neither of them have any reason to pity the other. They eat in silence for an awkward moment, spoons clinking against ceramic as the rain continues to pound their little dome.

         “Will you tell me about the scar?” Rey finally ventures, and she’s relieved when Kylo smiles.

         “I lost a fight,” he teases, and Rey nudges his knee playfully with her toes.

         “Obviously. Lost it to whom? You’re the best fighter I’ve ever seen.”

         He sighs, still smiling wryly. “Someone who shouldn’t have been an enemy to begin with. But she isn’t anymore.”

         Rey puts her empty bowl to the side and angles towards him, then traces the pink line down his bicep with her skinny index finger. “Couldn’t you have it removed?”

         Kylo stares at her in mock-offense, his mouth dropping open. “What? You don’t think it’s attractive?” Rey blushes and gives a sheepish grin, but Kylo continues to tease her, sitting up to flex his arm in a dramatic fashion. “It doesn’t compliment my rugged, masculine charm?”

         Rey rolls her eyes and flops onto her back, grinning. “No, it definitely does.”

          The smirk is back as Kylo leans over her, resting an elbow on either side of her head. “Good,” he croons, then kisses her until she blushes from her brows to her breasts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you click an E-rated fic, we all know this is what you come for... I hope it was all you hoped for! 
> 
> There will be more before the end. Come for the smut, stay for the plot.


	5. Act II, part 2

_Rey opens her eyes to a gray room, lit from above. She is shackled to a metal rack: the steel at her back is cold and unforgiving, and the restraints holding her limbs in place cut into her with edges left sharp and unfinished. She’s lying at an uncomfortably upright angle the keeps her weight pressing into the shackles and Rey can feel the sharp ache in her limbs .She’s been here for a while. The room is small, dimly lit, and industrial._

_Crouched before her, menacing even at this angle, is the monster in the mask._

_Dread descends on her chest like a weight, crushing the breath from her lungs. She begins, uselessly, to struggle against the shackles, winces as they cut and scrape her skin, but the drive to run is too strong to ignore. She’s panicking, eyes raking the walls in search of exits, access panels, emergency hatches, anything she could climb in to escape._

_The monster stands slowly, towering over her. The silver lines of the mask gleam in the dim lighting and Rey can clearly see the texture of its black garment, the hilt of the fiery sword on its belt, the smell of ash…_

_It says something to her, but the sound is garbled and inaudible over the hammer of her heart._

_REY…_

_She’s thrashing against the steel, bruising herself, straining, crying… then the monster begins to remove the mask, and Rey squeezes her eyes closed because she doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to know what lies beneath the leather and steel…_

_REY!_

         Rey’s eyes snap open, and the monster is gone. Instead she sees Kylo, hair mussed and eyes wide with concern. Pale pink light suffuses the room, and Rey can see the green canopy through the skylights above. She’s safe in bed but she’s shaking head to toe, sweating and gasping. The sheets are tangled around her clammy limbs.

          It was so real. She could feel everything. She could even smell it…

          Kylo is fussing over her, pulling her against his chest, stroking her hair. Rey pats his arm reassuringly and fights to slow her ragged breathing.

         “I’m alright. Just a nightmare.”

         “You were thrashing around,” he murmurs, and his bare chest rumbles against her ear. “I kept trying to wake you.”

          “I could hear you in the dream,” Rey realizes, trailing an absent finger down the pink ridge of scar tissue on his shoulder. “I thought it was the monster speaking to me, but I think it was you.”

         Kylo tenses under her hands and leans back, catching her with a guarded gaze. “The monster in the black mask?” Rey nods, and Kylo reaches to push her tangled hair back from her face, eyes sharp with concern. “How often are you having these dreams, Rey?”

         She shrugs noncommittally. “Not very often. This is only the second one with the masked thing. The rest are just about the forest burning down.”

         Rey can see from his grave expression that she’s done little to console him. “Tell me about the dream,” he demands. “What is the masked man doing? Where are you?”

         His agitation is beginning to frighten her. “I was in a room, strapped down to something metal. It started to take off the mask.” She almost misses Kylo’s sharp inhale, the minute tightening of his fingers on her shoulder. “But then I woke up.”

         His throat bobs as he swallows, and the haunted expression on his face puzzles her. “But Kylo, it’s just a nightmare. Right?”

         He nods slowly. “Just a dream,” he agrees, but Rey has the distinct feeling that he doesn’t believe it, and neither does she.

         After breakfast, they meditate. Kylo settles in a corner of the sleeping area with his long legs crossed and before long Rey can hear his rhythmic breathing, deep and still. She can usually focus at least as well as he can, often even more deeply, but today the fear of the nightmare intrudes. Though she tries to clear her mind, Rey can’t dismiss the sensation of metal scraping her wrists, the strong scent of ashes, the hissing of an air seal as the monster removes his helmet…

         After ten or more unsuccessful minutes, Rey gives up and decides to take a brisk run instead, hoping the fresh air and endorphins will ease her stress. Kylo seems fully immersed, so Rey doesn’t disturb him. She won’t be gone very long.

         The air is cooler this morning, with a slightly crisp edge to it. The grass and leaf litter is dotted with dew, and the humidity has declined considerably after the storm the night before. Rey takes off towards the cliffs, her favorite destination, and is surprised to see that the storm has done some damage to the woods. Fallen branches and bent trunks are everywhere. An old tree uncomfortably close to their shelter has been uprooted and cleaved in half. It isn’t the one Rey scaled yesterday, but it’s similar enough to make her heartbeat pound in her ears.

         A flash of brown and beige catches her eye against the mottled tones of the forest. It’s the old man, the one she first saw months ago in the woods. He stares at her as he always does, beckons her with his wistful expression before turning away. Rey stares after him, debating whether to ignore the apparition or not. Something deep within her wishes he would leave her in peace, but curiosity gets the better of her and Rey follows at a jog, not bothering to call out to him—she knows he won’t wait or reply.

         The bearded old man leads her on a chase over fallen trees and a cold little spring to a part of the forest she hasn't been in before. There’s a ridge rising up to her left. She’s lost sight of the old man now, but the ridge has curious angles to it, unnatural shapes and patterns in the stones… it’s a staircase, Rey realizes, leading to the top of the cliff. Beyond it she can hear the gentle lapping of the sea.

         As Rey climbs the worn grey steps the forest seems to vanish from sight—the trees waver and blink out, and features that were just there are gone once she looks away from them. It’s as if she has accidently stepped sideways into a different world. Startled by the illusion, her steps falter and she nearly trips on the rough steps. Pausing for a moment to steady herself, Rey contemplates turning around, going straight back to Kylo and telling him about this vision, and the others. But Rey knows he will tell her to ignore them. He will tell her they mean nothing, that she is overtired or hasn’t eaten… Rey knows it isn’t true. These dreams and visions mean something. They are leading her towards some forgotten truth.

         By the time Rey crests the ridge, the forest is gone. If she peers behind her she can see it far below, flickering in and out like a broken holo, but before her is only a grey, rocky outcrop overlooking the sea. Large grey stones like enormous bricks surround her, as if a great building once stood here but has since gone to ruin. The sea below her is dark and rough, enormous waves crashing against the base of the cliff.

         Something glints between the stones, and Rey crouches to see it clearly. In a shallow crevasse lays the odd cylinder the old man tried to hand her. She can see now that it’s a lightsaber hilt, gray with a black grip and a switch on one side. Rey reaches for it, wraps her fingers around it, and for a split second she can feel the smooth coolness of the steel against her palm…

         The light changes. Rey blinks.

         It’s just a small branch, a bit of litter from last night’s storm.

         The trees surround her once more and the ancient stones are gone. Even the sea has changed, from rough grey to its more customary calm blue. Rey straightens, disoriented, and stares at the mundane branch in her hand. With an exasperated shout she flings the branch away and lashes out at it with the Force.

         To her horror, it bursts into flames.

         Rey stares wide eyed as it blackens and crackles. When the wind picks up the ashes and carries them out to sea, she realizes she is crying.

         Something is wrong. She can’t go on like this. She won’t.

         Rey’s bitter cry echoes against the cliffs and dies amongst the squawks of the sea birds.

\- - - - -

         She means to tell Kylo about the vision right away, but the words die in her throat each time she thinks of it. They spar briefly, then spend several hours rehearsing the form and philosophy of Niman. Then there’s lunch, and Rey has the perfect opportunity to tell Kylo about the man in the forest and the lightsaber tucked beneath the rocks. But they’re having a lively discussion about the advantages of different brands of pulse generators, and Rey isn’t about to give up her argument for Sienar Fleet Systems—she’s taken apart a dozen TIE fighters and knows full well they hold up better than the Kuati design.

         Finally, at dinner, she has no more excuses. They’re sipping their clear soup in companionable silence before the small wood stove—they need a fire at night now that the air is cooling, and the crackling warmth is soothing even if the smoke leaks into the room more than it should. Rey takes a deep breath and coughs to clear her throat.

         “I saw that strange man in the forest again today. You remember?”

         Kylo pauses with his spoon halfway to his mouth, his expression decidedly blank. “Yes, I remember.” He sips quietly and raises his eyes to Rey, who shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

         “He led me out to the cliffs again, and… it was like the landscape changed. Like I stepped into a holo of some other place.”

         A tiny _clink_ sounds as Kylo lays his spoon in his bowl. “What did it look like?” His voice is calm, but far from casual. One of his hands is gripping his knee.

         “The trees disappeared and the sea turned grey. There were these big old stones everywhere.” Rey slurps at her soup, trying to keep her tone nonchalant. She’s been reluctant to mention these visions for a long time, and Kylo’s barely disguised tension is damaging her resolve. “And then on the ground there was a lightsaber, but when I picked it up everything went back to normal.”

         Kylo swallows and says nothing.

          “What do you think it means?” Rey asks nervously.

         Frowning, Kylo picks up his spoon again and sips his broth. “I don’t think it means anything.”

         Rey’s shoulders droop and she gives him a hard look. “How can it not mean anything? This is the fifth time—”

          “The fifth time?” Kylo repeats, voice rising in alarm. “Why haven’t you told me about this until now?”

          “If it doesn’t mean anything, why would I bother?” Rey argues, slamming her bowl down on the table. “You dismissed it the first time I told you, you dismiss my dreams… I think I’m having visions, Kylo! The Force is trying to tell me something—”

          “These are not visions from the Force!” He hisses, leaning forward in his chair.

         Rey’s eyes widen and her mouth twists in frustration. “What are they, then?” She barks at him. “If it isn’t a vision from the Force, then it’s a ghost—” Kylo scoffs, and Rey glares at him. “Or I’m just going crazy. Either way, I’d like to know!”

         Kylo stands abruptly, his long legs knocking against the little table between them. “I’m not prepared to discuss this. I need… I need to think about it, Rey. I need to meditate on this.” He bends to gather their dishes, but Rey scrunches up her face and kicks at the table, toppling it and spilling the remains of dinner over the steel floor.

         “You mean you _won’t_ discuss it! You know exactly what they mean, and you don’t want to tell me!”

          “Rey—”

          “No! Don’t bother explaining!” Rey pushes violently from her chair and stomps towards the entrance to the sleeping space. “I’ll figure it out myself!”

         Rey retreats into the dark bedroom, thankful when Kylo doesn’t follow. She doesn’t want to argue with him, nor does she want to hear his patronizing excuse for why he won’t discuss her visions. And it _is_ an excuse—he’s hiding something from her. Rey is certain of it now.

         Rey pulls her futon away from Kylo’s, dragging it to the other side of the room. She can hear him in the living space, righting the furniture and stacking the dishes, and finds herself irrationally annoyed by the noise. She just wants to get away from him for a little while.

         So close to the outer wall of the shelter and with no stove to heat the room, the sleeping space is cold. The thin sheet and blanket that she so frequently discarded in the warmer season are insufficient. With a huff, Rey lifts the lid of her footlocker and pulls out a spare blanket from the bottom, beneath the haphazard bundles of clothes. It’s thin as well, and Rey silently curses Kylo for not having the forethought to bring more substantial bedding.

         She checks his footlocker next, too spiteful at the moment to respect his privacy. In the bottom of the chest, beneath the tidily folded pairs of trim black pants and white shirts, the balls of socks and coiled belts, is a large folded swath of woven fabric. Rey tugs on it, pulling it up past the painstakingly organized stacks of clothes.

         It is heavy. Too heavy, Rey realizes, for a blanket. Kylo’s clothes spill out onto the floor as Rey pulls out the rough black bundle. There is something bound in the coarse dark linen, something round and hard. Without thinking, Rey shakes it free of the fabric. A black helm drops onto the steel floor with a loud _thunk._

         Black glass eyes, surrounded by chrome lines and a flat black faceplate, stare up at her.

         She can’t breathe. She can’t move. She can’t even think.

         The monster in the black mask. It’s _him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that ends Act II. 
> 
> As many have predicted, the shit is hitting the fan.
> 
> Thanks for being here with me on the angst train. Stick around for the conclusion- things get stranger. Much stranger.


	6. Act III, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE!!
> 
> Happy Friday, lovely reader.

Act III

         Rey doesn’t know how long she stands there, staring into the glass eyes of the mask. But for the rustling of the canopy above, the world stands still and silent until she is jerked from her shock by the stomping of boots, the plodding gait that has always seemed so familiar to her—and finally she understands why.

         With one enormous hand bracing against the lintel, Kylo ducks his oversized frame through the doorway to the bedroom. Looking up, he sees the mess she’s made of his clothes and the mask lolling on the floor. The blood drains from his face.

         “That’s private,” Kylo says simply, stupidly, his tone flat.

         Rey backs away from it and from him, stumbling over her heels until she bumps into the duraplast wall of the dome. “It’s you,” she whispers, hands shaking at her sides. “You’re the monster in the mask.”

         He cringes, and his mouth pulls wide into a pained frown. “I’m not a monster.”

         “You’ve done something to me,” Rey accuses, eyes darting as she begins to piece together the puzzle that’s been plaguing her for months. “The dreams. All the things I know when I shouldn’t.”

         She tries to swallow the hysterical lump building in her throat. Her knees feel loose and unreliable.

          _He did something to my mind._

         “No, not _to_ you.” He’s holding up his empty hands and taking slow steps towards her, as if he’s approaching a wild animal. His face is drawn, haunted. “I did it _for_ you.”

         His voice almost breaks as he says it, and Rey feels like she might throw up.

         “That’s how you justify it?” She spits the words at him, balling her fists at her sides. “What is it you don’t want me to remember? Who the kriff are you?” Rey demands.

         She sees him swallow, eyes closed, and she hates him. She _hates_ him. He’s a liar, a manipulator, he’s messed with her memories somehow… a thought occurs to her and makes her stomach lurch. She made love to him without knowing what he really was. Was that his goal all along? She remembers a hundred desire-laced glances and feels bitter bile rise in the back of her throat—

         He whispers a broken confession into the darkness: “I’m your husband.”

         The room tilts at a dangerous angle, and for a long minute her vision fades down to a sharp tunnel filled with white light.

         Voices are echoing in her mind— _high pitched screams, a man begging, a hard voice muttering, “Take it and go…”_

         Rey blinks up at the moonlight pouring in through the clear ceiling.

         Kylo has laid her down on her mattress and is pushing her hair back from her brow, shushing her gently. Tears meander down the pale angles of his face. “I can’t do this again.” He laments, a murmur that morphs into a cry. “Please. I can’t start all over, Rey. Please don’t make me do this again.”

         She has no idea what he’s talking about. Her teacher is the monster from her nightmares, and he is her _husband?_ It is almost worse than if he’s used her, worse than if he were an obsessed stranger.

         “No. No, no, no you’re lying…” She shakes her head and shoves at him with arms weak from shock until, mercifully, he backs away a foot to sit cross legged on his own futon with his head in his hands.

         “You married me _twice_.” He breathes, eyes closed, and rakes long fingers through his curls. “You said vows, and then begged him to make you forget—” His voice breaks again, and beneath his hands Rey can see an ugly, gut-wrenching expression of almost childlike grief.

         She’s incredulous, still shaking her head with every syllable. “You’re the monster from the woods. From my dreams.” She protests venomously. “You’ve been lying to me for _months_.”

         “You loved that monster.” He murmurs. Then there’s a strange feeling in her mind, a bizarre brush like a feather being drawn lightly across her consciousness. “You can forget, but I’ve had to remember.”

         She doesn’t understand him. She wants to get _away_ from him, away from the ominous darkness of this forest… she should be on Jakku. She should be waiting for her family. Rey starts to calculate how many rations she would have to grab, and which direction would lead her to the beach. She can steal the _Corona_ -class, go home, and strand Kylo Ren (or whatever his name is) here with no com connection—

         He reaches for her hand, and Rey tries to pull away from him but his grip is like iron, as it always is. He leans over her and presses her palm to his damp face and Rey wants to be repulsed by him, wants to believe that he’s a liar, but the corners of his mouth are turned down with an anguish that can’t be faked.

         “Take the memories back then, if you need proof. But please _stay with me_ this time.” Rey is shocked to realize that he’s begging her, and the grief is too primal to be a lie. “Don’t make me start over.”

         Rey stares back him, uncomprehending. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t know how—”

         “You knew how to get into my mind on the first day we met, Rey. You built a home there, forged a bond.” He leans down and presses his forehead to hers. “I couldn’t keep you out even if I wanted to.”

         Rey inhales charcoal, smoke… ash.

         The feather-light brush is at the edge of her consciousness again, and this time she follows it. Rey tracks it with the Force until she feels their minds beginning to mix together, interspersed but distinctly separate like oil beading in a bowl of water. Flashes of memory flicker past in quick succession, one after another after another, and all of them so _familiar_.

          _She and the masked figure are fighting, whirling around each other with lightsabers clashing in showers of red and blue sparks. Rey traps him against a black pillar of steel, disarms him, smirks. Then she pulls off the mask to reveal a proudly grinning Kylo. Rey leans in to steal a sweaty, closed mouth kiss._

          _[You came to me after Luke sent you away.]_

          _The two of them, clad in black, stand on the command deck of a star destroyer, watching a battle rage on outside the viewport. X-Wings and TIE fighters chase each other over the starry backdrop like fireflies. Rey and Kylo’s faces are grim. Rey swipes away a tear, glaring over her shoulder to be sure no one has noticed. Kylo’s gloved hand brushes hers in a subtle show of empathy._

          _[The First Order won the war. After the Hosnian system, it wasn’t much of a fight.]_

          _Rey is climbing through the rubble of a bombed out Resistance base, with Kylo following at a respectful distance. Bodies litter the halls: some in white armor, some in rag-tag gear. A leather jacket, smeared with blood, catches Rey’s eye. She stops, eyes wide, breathing heavily. She smells ashes and charred flesh, and can’t go any further._

          _[You stayed out of the fighting, but they were your friends. You felt responsible.]_

          _Kylo, unmasked, is on a narrow bridge in an industrial structure. He plunges the red beam of his saber into Han Solo’s chest, jerks it once, and then lets his father fall into the dark. Kylo stares after him as he falls, stunned by his own action, tears trailing down his expressionless face._

_[I’m familiar with regret. This was different.]_

_A door opens to reveal Rey sitting on the floor, her back against a rumpled black bed. She’s holding a lightsaber hilt and turning it over and over in her hands. There are scratches up and down her arms, red and raw. Kylo approaches her slowly, fearfully. He kneels down beside her and reaches for the saber. Rey gives it up reluctantly, staring at him with hollow, red-rimmed eyes._

_[You talked about hurting yourself. You asked for help.]_

_A grotesque creature towers above them, ancient and mutilated. He leans forward from his chair to stare at Rey, and speaks in a garbled voice that rumbles in their chests. She won’t meet his gaze, but manages to nod at him. Then he turns to Kylo—stalwart, fierce, determined.  Kylo’s nostrils flare, and he nods as well._

_[Snoke said he could help you if I helped him. He could take your memories and ease your regrets. We thought we’d found a cure.]_

_The memories come rapid-fire now: Rey depressed and confused after events have been cherry-picked from her memory. She’s listlessly wasting away while Kylo grows more and more panicked on her behalf. In another attempt, almost like another life, Rey attacks Kylo when she can’t remember him as anything but an enemy. Then another where all she can remember is that she’s supposed to find Luke Skywalker. It becomes a singular obsession until she discovers that he is dead—that Kylo killed him as part of their bargain with Snoke—and adds that casualty to the list of others she can’t forgive herself for._

_[We were wrong.]_

         Rey’s eyes flutter open to see nothing but the stars peaking through the dark canopy above them. She turns her head to see that Kylo has flopped onto his back beside her. He’s breathing heavily, with sweat beading on his forehead. Having one’s mind read is not comfortable, Rey recalls now—she’s endured that unsettling strangeness, though the details are still vague and recollecting them makes her head hurt.

         “It was my idea,” she mutters, and Kylo nods in response. “Because Finn died… and Poe, and Chewie, and General Organa and—and it was my fault—”

         She presses her knuckles to her mouth to stifle the sob that’s threatening to burst forth, and Kylo rises hurriedly to one elbow and wipes the tears from her face with a calloused thumb. “They were on the wrong side of a war, Rey. That’s all. You didn’t kill them. You barely participated.” The words sound rehearsed, as if he’s tried to reassure her of this many, many times. It doesn’t work very well.

         “I stood by and did nothing. I didn’t help them.” Her breaths catch in her throat, coming so quickly that she begins to feel lightheaded. Her friends all died and she didn’t lift a finger to help them. The guilt is consuming, all-encompassing, pressing down on her like a boulder on her chest.

         Kylo shushes her softly, raking long fingers through her hair. “You got shut out, Rey. They didn’t want your help.”

         Rey shakes her head. “I don’t understand why they would do that!” She cries between hiccupping breaths. “Why did Luke send me away?”

         He closes his eyes and presses his lips together, but doesn’t answer her.

         He knows. He knows, and he isn’t telling her. Rey rises onto one elbow and swallows, trying in vain to suppress the lump of grief in her throat.

         “Why, Kylo?” She demands.

         Kylo shakes his head in response. “Please don’t, Rey.” He begs softly. “You don’t want to know this.”

         “They’re my memories!” She balls her fists in the blankets and glares at him.

         “You told me not to show you. You made me _swear_!” He lashes out, eyes hard as they meet her glare. Then he breathes, closes his eyes for a moment and reopens them, visibly calmer. “I promised, Rey.”

         Rey’s mouth drops open. He promised her… another version of her.

         How can she argue with herself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just couldn't keep you hanging until Sunday. I can't wait to hear what you all think of the twist, so if you liked it (or you want to send me hate mail, which I honestly find just as flattering) please fee free to leave your thoughts in a comment or get in touch with me on [tumblr](http://hyperscanvindicator.tumblr.com/). I'd love to hear from you!
> 
> I know this was a short chapter, but there was no other logical way to split it up. On Sunday you'll get a full 5k words and that will conclude the story.


	7. Act III, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ready? READY? This is the end!!

         The days following her revelation pass in a blur. They barely leave the shelter. Rey sits, lost in snippets of broken memories, while Kylo meditates and urges her to eat. They sleep wrapped up together like a pair of wilting vines.

         Rey asks Kylo questions when the trains of thought come derailed. He spins bits and pieces of their tale before the wood stove, stroking Rey’s hair as she lies with her head in his lap and stares at the smoke gathering at the ceiling.

         “You sent a com message to the First Order for me, but it was weeks before the bureaucracy routed it properly. I was too excited to even be furious with anyone. We met on Jakku. I think it was only place you felt welcome anymore.”

         “Why were you so excited?” She asks, absently picking at stray threads in her sweater.

         He looks down at her, incredulous. “Because I’d been searching for you for months, ever since we first met. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

         “Why?” Rey’s mouth pulls wide and she furrows her brows in disbelief. “We tried to kill each other!”

         Kylo shrugs, still running his calloused fingers through her hair. He stares into the fire. “It had been a long time since I’d met another force sensitive. I thought we’d understand each other… what it was like to have no one. To be used and betrayed by everyone you ever trusted. To be angry about it, and tired of hearing that we shouldn’t be.”

         Rey looks up at him, his expression wistful as he stares into the flames. “I don’t remember being betrayed,” She reminds him softly.

         He balls his fist in her hair and frowns. “Good. You deserved better, and I’m trying to give it to you.

         That night she dreams of the burning forest again, and wakes with the scent of ashes in her nose. Over a breakfast of dried fruit, caf, and mushy grains, Kylo convinces her that she needs to get out of the shelter and do something productive. Rey is reticent. Her limbs feel heavy and her mind is fogged and fatigued. She can’t seem to concentrate.

         “Just take a walk with me then. Breathe some fresh air. We’ll find a calm place to meditate.”

         Rey doesn’t really want to, but she feels guilty for making Kylo worry. He hasn’t left her side for days, and there seems to be a permanent wrinkle in his forehead. He’s restless from the inactivity, but afraid to leave her alone. Refusing to at least try to return to the land of the living just isn’t fair to him.

         “Fine,” Rey agrees reluctantly, and pulls on her soft grey shoes.

         The leaves are changing. Some have turned yellow, others purple or red, and the wind blowing in from the sea has a bite to it. Rey pulls her grey jacket tightly around her chest and trudges beside Kylo with her arms crossed. For a while there are no sounds but the rustling of their footsteps and the brush of the wind through the canopy, until finally Rey thinks of a topic that will make Kylo smile.

         “When did we marry?”

         The grin uncurls slowly across his beautiful face, and Rey hopes that she’s made up for worrying him so much. “The first time was just before the end of the war. We didn’t tell anyone, though the Supreme Leader figured it out eventually. He was furious.” Kylo smirks at this, as if upsetting the Supreme Leader was the very height of satisfaction.

         “Where did we do it?”

         “Naboo. We’d just finished negotiating their assimilation. There hadn’t been any fighting, so we were just there to… be conspicuously present, you could say. To make sure things went smoothly. It’s beautiful there, very green. You’ve always loved plants.”

         Rey pauses, staring down at her feet as she trudges through fallen leaves and twigs. “Did I wear something nice?”

         Kylo stops and pulls at her elbow, urging her into an embrace. Their foreheads touch, and Rey catches secondhand glimpses of herself wrapped in miles of lace and draped with strands of pearls, her hair dotted with flowers.

         “Stunning,” Kylo breathes, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose.

         Rey smiles, and for the first time in days it reaches her eyes. Through all the turmoil and confusion that’s been clouding her mind she feels a little spark of happiness, of hope. They’d been content together once. They’d planned a life together. What was stopping her from being happy with him now?

         A gust of wind whips around them, and Rey looks past Kylo into the woods. Amongst the mottled greens, yellows, reds and browns of the turning leaves, she spots a familiar wisp of beige.

         “Kylo,” Rey whispers urgently. “He’s here.”

         Kylo jerks his head to glance over his shoulder, then turns back to Rey with a frown. She points to where the old man is standing, between two trees about a hundred yards away. Kylo looks again, squinting.

         “There’s nothing there, Rey.”

         “He’s right there!” She insists, ducking under Kylo’s arm to approach the robed figure.

         Kylo shouts after her, but she barely hears him. Like last time, the flickering apparition blinks in and out of existence, leading them towards the cliffs. Rey jogs after the old man, stopping only to look around for where he has reappeared. With a stream of useless protests, Kylo crashes through the brush behind her. Finally they emerge onto the cliffs, and there stands the old man. He’s holding out his arm, extending the saber to her—the same offering he made the first time Rey saw him.

         “He keeps trying to give me that lightsaber…” She muses, but Kylo pushes in front of her and grabs her by the shoulders.

         “Rey, there is nothing there!” He insists, and his voice has a sympathetic quality to it that grates Rey’s nerves—as if he’s speaking to a child, to someone less intelligent.

         She’s not crazy. Kylo’s looking at her as if she’s waving around a primed blaster pistol, but she’s not crazy—the man is right there in front of her. She can see the grey and brown of his beard, the blue of his eyes, the rise and fall of his chest. Rey pushes past Kylo, frustrated and determined, and reaches out to take the offered hilt.

         “Take it and go.” The man rumbles in a gravely tone. His eyes are hard, merciless.

         He’s never spoken to her before. Rey pauses, taken aback, then slowly asks, “Why do I have to go?”

         “Rey…” Kylo warns.

         The old man doesn’t reply, just continues holding out the saber hilt and staring at her with those terrible eyes. Rey reaches out to take it from him, and as her fingers brush the cool, cylindrical steel, the figure vanishes.

         Rey blinks a moment, then stomps her foot. “Damnit!” She shouts at the sea. “Damnit damnit damnit! Just leave me alone then!” Rey picks up a stone and hurls it over the cliff, then another and another, shouting incomprehensibly until Kylo pulls her back from the edge.

         “Rey, stop!” With a firm hand on each of her shoulders he steadies her. “This isn’t helpful.”

         “What does he want?” She cries, pounding her fists on his chest. “Who is he?”

         Kylo pauses before answering, his voice halting and his expression guarded. “I think you’re remembering Luke Skywalker.”

         Rey’s eyes widen. “‘ _Take it and go.’_ He’s sending me away.” Kylo nods reluctantly and Rey fixes him with a hard stare. “Why did he do it, Kylo?”

         “Rey, please…”

         “No!” She balls her fists and beats them against his chest again, furious. She’s shouting at him, eyes filling up with frustrated tears. “I thought it was a ghost or a vision… but I’m just hallucinating, aren’t I? So how can you ask me to live with half my memories when it doesn’t even fix the problem?”

         “How can you ask me to live with half my wife?” He shouts back at her, digging sharp fingers into her upper arms. “How can you ask me to watch you fall apart over and over? How can you ask me to put you back together again when the only way is to wipe you clean and make you forget me? Fuck, Rey! I love you!”

         The words steal the breath from her throat and she stills, staring into vivid brown eyes that she could never forget—not if Snoke cleaned her mind out from top to bottom.

         “I love you, Rey. I will tear this galaxy apart to be with you. I don’t care about anything else. But do not ask me to help you destroy yourself. Do not ask me to reveal something that you yourself _begged_ me to keep from you. I will always be here—if we have to do this a thousand times, until we’re grey and ancient, I’ll be here. But I won’t ruin our progress on purpose.”

         He pulls her into a tight embrace, pressing her against his chest until she can barely breathe.

         “We have each other. Why can’t it be enough? Just let the past go. Please, Rey.”

         He loves her. The words coat her mind in mist, obscuring all else. If Skywalker dismissed her, if she was betrayed, if she betrayed someone else… Kylo is here, right now, asking for her trust and her mercy. How can she deny him just to satisfy some morbid curiosity?

         Rey swallows and murmurs into his chest. “Alright. I promise, Kylo.”

         She feels his breath catch, and he loosens his embrace so he can look her in the eyes. “I love you too, Kylo Ren. And it’s… it’s more than enough.”

         His eyes close and his shoulders hunch, and relief pours from him in a wave.

         They hold hands in companionable silence as they walk back to the shelter. Rey’s mind feels clearer, less weighed down by the hopelessness that had plagued her the last few days. The decision to accept ignorance has freed some part of her, opened her to the possibility of bliss.

         Kylo loves her. She loves him. They can be a little family, the one she’s been searching for. Whatever the calamity she’s choosing to forget, it can’t be changed now. And even though it means forgoing the truth, Rey can’t overlook the fact that this—this love, this person that deserves better than a broken partner—is also true.

         They kick their muddy shoes off just inside the entrance, and then Kylo peels away to start some mindless chore. Rey tugs him back, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder and laying kisses on his collarbone.

         “I should fix the stove. The smoke isn’t venting.”

         “Forget the stove a minute.” Rey pleads, running restless hands up and down his arms. Kylo hums appreciatively, settling his hands around her waist. Rey pushes the plain black jacket over his shoulders and tugs the hem of his soft shirt. They’ve lost so much time together. There’s a lot to make up for, and Rey doesn’t want to waste a moment. Her urgency catches on, and soon Kylo is pulling her sweater over her head. He slips fingers beneath her breast band to knead her and ghosts teasing hands over her ribs. He kisses a line over her jaw and worries at the skin beneath her ear until she gasps.

         Then Rey slips an unsure hand beneath his waistband and curls her fingers around his cock. Her hair tangles in his hands and he throws his head back, straining into her hand. “Maker, Rey.” He pulls her in, envelops her against his wide chest and rolls his hips again. “I’ve missed you,” He breathes against the top of her head, and spreads a possessive hand over her jaw.

         Rey pushes futilely at his pants with one hand until he reaches down and catches her wrist, inhaling sharply. Kylo pulls away and Rey whines in a soft protest, but he’s tugging her into the bedroom, shedding his shirt as he goes. He stops steps from the shambles of their bed to unfasten his wide belt and shove it over his hips. Rey stumbles into him while stepping out of her leggings and finds herself crushed against his chest, humming as Kylo rakes hands through her hair and catches her mouth in a kiss so deep it’s almost invasive. Rey can feel his cock twitching against her belly as she leans into him, breathing in his smoky, woody scent. She hooks her fingers under his tight shorts and ducks down, pulling them over his thighs until he’s free, firm and red in her hands.

         Staring, enthralled with the way he pulses in her fist, the way the skin pulls back to reveal the slick tip, Rey drops to one knee and kisses it, flicking her tongue against him.

         “Maker.” Kylo groans and buries a hand in her hair, stroking her scalp reverently. “F—fuck, Rey…”

         She parts her lips to take him in her mouth, wracking her brain for the fractured memories that she knows must be there somewhere, pulled from Kylo’s mind days ago… yes, she’s done this before. He likes it slow, likes to savor it the same way he does his food, his showers, his meditation. Her husband is a decadent man.

         She sucks and laps at him, almost teasing, glorying in how easily she can make him pant. Kylo wants her, and that’s a delightful thing to Rey—to be wanted. To be cherished, as the strong hand kneading the nape of her neck promises her she is. Rey opens her mouth and presses slowly forward until Kylo’s cock taps the back of her throat, and the whine it drags from his throat is divine. She holds him there until he cups her face with his hands and pulls away, gasping.

         “Enough,” he breathes, dropping to his knees on the futon beside them. Rey follows, meeting his hungry mouth with her own and whimpering shamelessly as he reaches down between them to part her folds with his fingers. She’s slick, already rolling her hips into his hand as he takes up his ineffable rhythm of down, up and around, indulging her until she’s near speechless with want.

         “Tell me, Rey.” Kylo murmurs against her ear, teasing a taught nipple with the back of his hand. “What do you want?”

         The familiar lump is in her throat, but Rey reminds herself that this is her husband, she is his wife. There’s no stigma left in admitting she wants him. “Fuck me.” She orders him softly, her voice breaking into a cry as he slips two fingers in deep.

         “That’s my gorgeous girl...” Kylo croons, guiding her down onto her side and lifting her ankle to his shoulder. “I’ve missed you.”

         He slips in luxuriously slowly, letting Rey bask in each inch of sensation. The fullness is excruciating but lusciously soft, and as he begins to rock against her Rey closes her eyes and loses herself in the delectable friction, raw and delicate all at once.

         There is nothing else she wants—her Kylo, their woods, this passion filling her up like the heady power of the Force. She can forget everything else, but this will be familiar. She can be cast out everywhere else, but here she will always be welcome.

         She feels him reach down and tap her clit, patiently circling it with a damp, coarse finger until she shatters around him. She bucks, shrieks against the back of her hand, and the spasms pull him over the edge with her. He winces and ruts four, five times before pushing her calf to the side and collapsing onto this elbows above her.

         Still panting, Rey strains her head to find his lips, lush and swollen and soft as velvet. _I love you_ , she thinks, mouth occupied.

          _[And I love you.]_

         The reply comes in her mind, and it’s undeniably his—even when her ears can’t detect it, the crisp baritone cadence gives Kylo away. He rolls onto his back and Rey cuddles into the crook of his arm, and the morning stretches on before them like a lifetime.

         Rey could stay like this forever, but after a while Kylo grows restless. The sleeping space is strewn with mugs of cold tea and stray blankets and sheets from the grey blur of the last few days, and Rey knows full well they have no more clean dishes. They dress at his insistence, then gather the refuse and make the beds. Rey starts rinsing their impressive collection of dishes while Kylo brings in more wood from the monstrous pile beside the lean-to shed.

         She’s stacking the clean bowls and mugs in the cabinets, and they aren’t as crammed full as they used to be. After over two months, their supplies have dwindled by about a third. It’s a sobering and unwelcome reminder that they can’t stay here forever. Eventually, as much as she might prefer to avoid it, they will have to rejoin the First Order.

         There’s still time, however.

         Rey turns to the sound of Kylo grunting in frustration, his arm stuffed into the cold wood stove up to the elbow.

         “Rey, I need your small hands.” He declares, extracting his dirt streaked forearm and wiping it with a damp towel. Rey closes the cabinet and crosses the shelter, bare feet chilly against the cool steel floor, and crouches beside him. “There’s something blocking the flue, but I can’t get my hand back there to reach it.”

         Rey peers into the dusty stove and slips her slim arm in, feeling around for the obstruction. Her fingers graze the edge of the flue vent, and there’s something sticking out- a half burnt piece of wood, perhaps. She gives a tug, but it’s stuck tight.

         “It’s not coming loose,” She grumbles, and Kylo huffs, mouth twitching in annoyance.

         “We’ll have to take the stove apart. I’ll go get a hydrospanner.”

         The door rattles closed as he stalks out to the shed. Rey keeps working at the piece of wood, rocking it back and forth until she feels it start to loosen.

         “Kylo?” Rey calls. “I think I got it.” She gives a rough tug and the stick comes free, and with it a cloud of ash that cascades out of the stove and directly into Rey’s face.

         Startled, Rey mistakenly breathes it in.

         She coughs, chokes… it’s in her mouth, her nose, her throat. Without warning, her heart begins to pound violently in her chest, and a painful pressure builds behind her eyes.

          _High-pitched screams. A man begs. A hut goes up in flames and the trees beside it burn as well. Soft, warm ashes slip between her fingers as she rakes through them, searching for something… for her lightsaber. For the cool grey cylinder with the black striped grip. Her hand closes around something round and she lifts it from the ash…_

          _A charred bone._

         It’s only a moment before Kylo returns with a motley collection of tools. His eyes lock onto hers, gritty with ash, tears forging tracks down her dusty cheeks. Her arm is grey to the elbow, and all Rey can think of is getting clean. She rubs at her skin, scrubs at it with filthy hands as a sob wrenches its way out of her ash-choked throat.

         She _burned_ them.

         She found her parents and _burned them alive_.

         Rey doesn’t remember how she gets into the shower, but somehow she’s crouched in the tiled corner being pelted with warm water. Kylo is beside her, washing the ash from her arms and face with a coarse, soapy cloth. Rey can’t focus on anything but the memories replaying in her head over and over, as if making up for all the time she’s had without them—an undeserved luxury.

          _Her father has the good sense to show contrition, but he is completely cowed by her mother. The hard woman scoffs, lectures, rolls her eyes… furious and hurt, Rey lashes out with the Force in a way she never knew she could and watches with righteous pleasure as her mother goes up in flames._

          _Then the flames spread, and she isn’t feeling righteous anymore. Rey rushes to escape the building and drops her lightsaber… she can’t leave without it. She has to watch the hut immolate, listen to the screams, and wait for the ruins to cool before she can retrieve it. She spends hours sifting through the ashes. She’s coated in them; painted with remains, crusted with the dead._

         For a few lucid moments she realizes that she’s actually clean and dry and wrapped in a blanket, propped up in the bed. Kylo is urging her to eat, to drink, to speak to him. Rey tries to respond but her mouth isn’t obeying her—her teeth are clenched, grinding uncomfortably. She can still feel the fury, the horrifying betrayal of realizing that she was not just abandoned but _sold_ , that she’s spent her life waiting for a _lie_ … There’s fire in her fingers, in her eyes, and Rey can feel it spreading—but then she is accosted by the memory of Luke’s disappointed expression, his flat dismissal as he asks her to leave.

          _She’s afraid of herself, terrified of the depth of her own rage. She confesses to Master Luke, hoping he can help her control herself, help her atone… but he won’t train her anymore. She’s too strong with the Dark Side. He warns her friends and their fear wounds her. It’s the final betrayal: worse than Luke’s refusal, worse than discovering that her parents sold her for spare parts._

          _She leaves, and one by one they die._

         The day passes and Rey drifts in and out of reality, with only fleeting awareness of what happens around her. Kylo is upset, crying, pleading with her. Then later he’s angry, shaking her and ordering her to answer him—she can’t. Her head is filled with screaming, her skin feels the searing heat. Finally Kylo’s as quiet as she is, leaning her against his chest and resting his stoic chin on her head. Another time, she can only guess how much later, Kylo tries with only marginal success to feed her soup. They sleep at some point, but Rey dreams of burning trees and wakes up sweating and crying.

         Beneath her skin Rey feels the fire, still smoldering.

         The next day passes in much the same manner. Rey stares down her breakfast, registering neither the meal nor Kylo’s worried sighs. He tries to feed her the porridge and Rey coughs and sputters, horrified, when it takes the dry, gritty texture of ash in her mouth. The screaming starts in her head again, and she loses the rest of the day.

         When she’s lucid again, the light streaming through the ceiling is dusky and dim and Kylo is changing her clothes. He guides her arms into a soft sleep shirt with practiced hands, and Rey realizes that he’s done this before. He’s cared for her, fed her, clothed her, even cleaned her when she wasn’t well enough to do it herself. The idea makes her feel sick. Rey tries to rouse herself to put the garment on herself but her limbs feel like they’re made of lead and she can feel the fire just under her skin fighting to get out. Rey balls her fists, as if that’ll hold it back, and finally gives up and lets Kylo dress her. He’s shushing her gently, and it’s soothing. She drifts off to the sound of him murmuring to her and the comforting feel of his fingers running through her hair.

         Over the next couple of days Rey tries really, really hard to worry about how this is hurting Kylo. There’s a sorrow in his eyes when he looks at her, a brokenness about him that she knows is her fault somehow. She promised him that she would give up on the past, that she would move forward with him, and she wants to. Desperately, she wants to be better for him, for herself.

         But she can’t.

         There’s a voice in her head crafting epithets, reasons why she doesn’t deserve the compassion Kylo shows her. The pain she’s causing him is just one more sin on her very long list of transgressions.

          _You are a pestilence. Your parents are dead. Your friends are dead. Your teacher is dead. Your husband is heartbroken. Of course they all abandoned you—everything you touch withers and dies._

          _He’ll be next._

         One time Rey looks up from her hands twisting in her lap to see Kylo sitting across from her in their living room. He’s holding a holobook, reading her a heavily romanticized story about Darth Somebody or Other.

         Beyond him, by the door, she sees Master Luke. He flickers and wavers in the air, staring at her with hard, accusatory eyes.

          _“Just go.”_

         Rey squeezes her eyes shut and clamps her hands over her ears. _It’s not real. It’s not real…_ Kylo’s shushing again, hugging her, rocking her, wiping the tears from her face, but all Rey can think of the fire, the ash.

         Someday, it’ll be Kylo. She’ll be sifting his ashes through her fingers, with no one left to fear her.

\- - - - -

         Kylo has carried her outside and it’s raining, the sort of light misty rain that threatens to last all day. The cool patter on her skin rouses her, still amazing even after all that she’s learned about herself. Water, falling freely from the sky. Rey cups her hands and waits until a pool gathers in her crossed palms, then brings it to her lips.

         Cold and clean.

         She looks at Kylo, sitting next to her on the edge of the shelter’s permacrete foundation with his elbows on his knees, staring down at the mud. His eyes are hollow, and Rey wishes more than anything that she could make him smile. She wishes she could just stop and go back to the way things were, when she was blissfully oblivious and he was happy.

          _He should be free of you._

         There’s a pain in her chest, like all her bones have curled inwards to pierce her heart and lungs until they’re nothing but mangled pulp. The air itself feels suffocating.

         Rey turns to Kylo and chokes out the first words she’s uttered in days. “You don’t have to do this, Kylo. You could—” she stumbles over the words. They’re useless anyway. He’s going to refuse. She doesn’t deserve this level of loyalty. “You could go back to your life.”

         He looks startled by her offer, but quickly composes his lips into a tight smile and drapes an arm around her shoulders. “You are my life,” he says simply, confidently.

         Rey gulps air, fighting the painful pressure in her chest. “What if someday I get you killed, like—”

         “Stop, Rey.” Kylo orders her softly. “You didn’t get them killed. You were hurt, traumatized, and they were too afraid to help. Their fear got them killed.” He turns to face her and cups her face in his hands, staring straight into her. “I’m not afraid of you. I never will be.”

         Rey swallows, fighting the lump in her throat that never quite seems to go away. She looks down at her hands, inspects her nails. They’ll never be clean enough. She’ll never escape what she’s done. A dry sob heaves out of her and she digs her nails into her knees. “I’m afraid of myself,” she admits brokenly. “Of what I might do.”

         Kylo pulls her into his wide chest, enveloping her with his arms. She feels him sigh, feels his breath on her hair. His voice is resigned, defeated. “We have to go back to Snoke.”

         Rey nods against his chest, closing her eyes against tears. “I know.”

         It means forgetting—forgetting their forest, their little domed shelter that has become a home, the cliffs where they meditate and the moons that watch her sleep. And Kylo… will she know him at all this time? Will she love him? Hate him?

         “I love you,” She whispers, pressing her forehead against the scar tissue on his shoulder. She hurts him, over and over. It seems it’s all she can do. “And I’m so sorry...”

         Her mouth twists down and her throat closes, and Kylo runs a soothing hand up and down her spine. “It’s alright. I love you too. We’ll try again.”

         His arms tighten around her and she feels a breath rattle through him. Rey wants to promise him that she’ll remember him this time, and in a way she knows she will. But perhaps that’s the dilemma: The memories are indelible, too deep to abolish completely. She’ll always recognize her sins hiding within the idyllic backdrops he crafts for her, just as she recognizes the the steady plodding of his gait, the shape of his name in her mouth, and the beating of his heart within the endless drumming of the rain.


	8. Epilogue

Epilogue

_I know it wouldn’t help her, but sometimes I wish I could kill them all again—everyone who ever judged her or feared her when she needed their love. Everyone who hesitated when she asked them for help. I’d slit Skywalker’s throat a thousand times if it would fix her._

_It’s so familiar that it makes me sick. After Ben, they should have known better._

_What if there isn’t any ideal place to which I can take her back? I’m trying to erase the memories that hurt her, but it’s her whole life. What span of time was there when she was truly happy? And now I’d worried that it’s making her worse. The hallucinations of Skywalker are a frightening new symptom, and the way her memories returned this time, all in a rush, is almost surely doing more damage. I can’t traumatize her over and over. If we aren’t sure the memory rub is permanent, then perhaps this method isn’t ethical, even if it was Rey’s idea. Maybe we’ll try a traditional medbay again. It’s been three years. Medical science has advanced._

_Either way, I can’t keep her safe here. There are too many ways for her to hurt herself, and she’s been unpredictable. It’s impossible to watch her all the time without help. And besides that, she’s in pain. I can’t justify staying here with her, where there is no way to treat her. It’s not going to be a brief, passing episode. She was nearly catatonic for three days._

_She suggested I leave her here and go back to my life, and for a split second I imagined it. There are little fires to put out all over the galaxy—I could be useful. But I can’t even think of leaving her, and I’m starting to wonder if Snoke is counting on that… perhaps he’s failing to fully erase her memory on purpose, to keep us busy. If I find out that worm has failed to keep his end of the bargain on purpose, I’ll pop him like a blister. If he can’t fix my wife, he’s no use to me at all._

_If Rey were well, we could easily kill him. She’d make a wonderful empress._

_More than anything, I don’t want to watch her forget who I am again. She’s the only person who’s ever understood me completely, the only person I could ever unconditionally trust._

_We’re like a binary star system. I can’t let her go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for being here to read this. I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> This is definitely the best thing I've ever written--whether that fact is a triumph or a tragedy, I'm not quite sure. But I put a lot of hard work into it: four months of researching, thinking, writing, and brutal revision, four beta readers, many many hours of brainstorming. I'm very proud of the end result.
> 
> As such, I'd love to hear what you think. I'm in the beginning stages of my next writing project now--also Star Wars, also Reylo--and I am always driven to learn from one thing as I move on to the next. 
> 
> As always, your comments are kudos are incredibly motivating and I love hearing from you on [tumblr](http://hyperscanvindicator.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Thank you again for taking the time to read this!


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